Eternity of the Depths
by NeonZangetsu
Summary: Immortality. Both a curse and a blessing. Doomed to die and be reborn in a seemingly endless cycle of reincarnation, Uzumaki Naruto becomes harsh and jaded, sick of the world that scorned him in its corruption. That is, until that world is threatened by creatures forces from beyond the Breach. Now they say that the only way to fight a monster...is with another monster. NarutoxMako!
1. Monster

**A/N: Still I return again! Things have been absolutely crazy for me as of the last few months what with the surgeries and all, but now at long last, I feel I can devote my attentions to this fic anew as I've intended to do! Of course, now that they're not cutting me OPEN anymore to work on my heart I've also come up with a quite a few new ideas! I can promise ya'll that the next few chappys are going to be nothing short of absolutely brilliant! So sorry for the wait! There's a bit of a long author's note this time, because there are a few matters I want to address.**

****But I also want to bring something to your attention. I've been putting this off for a while, but this needed to be done. I have PURGED many of my older works and begun updating those that truly are works of art. That's right, I've either deleted or adopted off many of the stories that I will no longer be continuing. Fear not, my most popular fics will remain, but most of my old stuff from back in 2008 and 2009, when I had no idea what I was doing is being all but removed from the site. Out with the old, in with the new, as they say! Still, if anyone is interested in any of my old stuff, say the word and its yours to continue. But I've held ya'll up long enough!****

**Now that we've addressed all those issues, I just wanted to say: Thank you. To all of you who reviewed and have yet to review, and especially those who noticed my improved writing style. You all know who you are. I look forward to hearing more from you as we continue down the strange, convulted path that is this story. I honestly cannot believe I've already gotten so many reviews for the first chapter alone, and now its so damn high I could cry with joy! Hopefully I won't dissapoint you guys! **

**Which brings me to my next point of interest. I'm sick. Really sick of getting flak from people for dedicating time and precious resources to my works, only to be assailed by those who are always dissapointed that I'm not going to stick to canon in some of my stories. This is fanfiction, damnit!**

**The latest chapter of Imperfection is a prime example of this and its beginning to grate on my last nerve. So, I...say this. I'm DONE. Just, done. If ya'll don't want to read some of my works then I won't grace you with them. My health is atrocious, and I'm STILL dedicating time to this site, knowing that some like my works. But I'm sick and tirned of all the hate I've been gettingin this last year- which is seriously causing me to wonder whether I should just drop this site altogether and move on. I dunno. Maybe I just don't like it when I've devoted so much time to something and a large group of people dedicate themselves to tearing it down. Who knows?**

**Truth be told, I got the idea for the concept by getting a glimpse at the preview of a certain show. Eternity it was called. I'd been planning on a Pacific Rim crossover for some time but when I was able to glimpse the footage I just thought, hey this could work. And thus, this idea was born. Again, I own nothing! Now...**

**...behold the fruits of my labor!**

_"You need only one blow to end an enemy...so long as it is the right one."_

_~Sage._

**Monster**

_Eternity._

A time without end.

Eternal.

Endless; interminable. A being without beginning or end. Continuing without interruption. Perpetual. The act of constantly existing. In some cases, this pertains to immortality. A state of being without end. In others, an endless cycle of rebirth. Long has humanity aspired to claim this state of being, constantly striving to find ways to extend their lifespan beyond that of the mundane and mortal.

They have yet to succeed.

Countless experiments ended in immediate failure or worse, blighted results not fit for the eyes of their world. Cloning didn't work. Gene therapy didn't work. Cryogenic freezing was also a failure. Despite their very best of intentions and major scientific advancements in the last decade, there were no breakthroughs. Eventually even this interest in this field died out as interest waned; as more and more of the still burgeoning population began to turn their attention to more mundane matters such as the cure for cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

In a way Uzumaki Naruto found their feeble efforts to be rather ironic, especially given his unique position in the world of today. Why would you want to live forever? It just made living all the more painful. Better to live a short and meaningful life than to suffer through a long one-a hellish existence full of pain and anguish. So he drifts, and he watchs the worl float by.

He's a beast apart, something not man-nor monster. A hybrid. But even can't understand why the rest of the human race wants to live forever. _The longer you're alive-the longer you're alone._ He pondered this as he dragged himself out of the San Francisco Bay, naked as the day he'd been born. He's just _died._ Car accident. One of the few days he'd decided to take the ol' Porsche out for a spin, and he got himself clobbered by a drunk driver at a stoplight. A tractor trailer, no less.

And yet, here he he was, slogging out of the bay, nine miles from his accident. No matter how or where he died he always seemed to reincarnate-if it could truly be called that-in the most random of places. He'd lost his life in Japan this time, yet here he was, halfway around the world. Just like that. It usually meant something big was about to happen. The last time he'd woken up somewhere new was when the Americans dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Now here he was in San Francisco, the golden gate bridge at his back.

Shivering, he stumbled out onto the stony bank, halting after only a few yards at a nearby fence.

A wave of his hand summoned forth a towel and new set of clothes from the seal on his arm. Pair of blue jeans, underwear, a dark shirt, and a leather jacket. Naruto donned them slowly and methodically-going through the same motions as he had a hundred times before. This was his thousandth death. He supposed he should ought to count himself fortunate. Whatever cruel and calllous trick fate was playing on him...it didn't seem to be through with him just yet.

But he was tired of being kept in his body against his will. He'd done everything right-absorbed the menace that threatened his homeland; taken it into himself to prevent it from ever spreading again. That was his very first death. The first of many. He hadn't thought much of it at first-that he was simply reborn seconds after his death, the old body he'd inhabited turning to ash at his passing. Now, countless years after the end of that era, after his time, he was still here.

He knew it had to be for a reason but what was that reason?

For the longest time he'd confined himself to Japan, trying to do good where he could and keep a low profile. And what did it get him? Scorn. There were rules they said. Couldn't do that, they said. Everywhere he tried to turn he was behest by naysayers, by those who didnt want-or need-the help he could provide. So eventually he just...stopped. Stopped caring. Listening. He'd confined himself to his own goals, his own tasks, awhile, as the world rotted around him.

He won't sit idly by while others come to tell him of his failure. He swings his legs over into the jeans, grimaces and stands. A dizzying wave of vertigo hits him, sending the world spinnning like a top. Its always like this whenever he is "born" again. The crushing nausea, the illness. It always passes. He takes some breaths and wills himself to not lose his footing. He won't reach out for support. He doesn't need it. Won't accept it. There is no need. None at all.

"Aw."

"Eh?"

Raising his gaze, he found himself looking at something...unexpected.

The shrouded black creature fluttered onto the fence, clattering the metal with its claws and stirring the morning air.

"Shoo." he motioned at the beast.

"Aw!"

It cocked its head, wings snapping at its side before letting out a sharp piercing caw.

"No," he snapped at it. "I'm not happy. Why would I be?"

"Aw?"

"We are _not_ having this conversation. I can't believe I'm even talking to ya. People will think I'm crazy! Me! A successful businessman, talking to a damned bird! Might as well be in a mental institution!" That much, was true. Not the crazy part; the part about being filthy stinking rich. Over the years he'd created several alliases for himself, one of which he was still using to this day. Uzumaki Naruto wasn't his name here. Not in this era-in this age he was Namikaze Minato, head of Namikaze Industries, a private creator/contractor of cutting edge, chakra-based technology in Japan. His chakra.

Gotta love those copyrights.

Money meant nothing to him, howver. It was merely a means by which to live. Reputation didn't bother him either; so what if the world saw him as a cold, unfeeling cynic? He took a tiny bit of pride in knowing that this tech helped the people of his homeland, but nothing more.

"Aw?!"

Naruto frowned up at the damned crow and its persistence, glaring at its noisy behavior. He reached down to pull a stone off the bank, tossing the small pebble menacingly. He grumbled softly to himself reaching up to toss the tiny rock into the air at the crow's feet below the fence and shoo the thing away.

"Get outta here! Get!" His hand whipped about.

The crow's feet shifted, wings rising once more to intimidate the intruder. The cawing persisted, small black eyes staring at the the shinobi indifferently.

"Alright, that's it!"

Naruto snarled, finally tossing another pebble completely at the bird. It smacked against the metal fence and the crow lifted into the air squawking in protest before shooting past him down the alleyway to land safely in a corner of trash and filth.

"Nothing but a rat with wings, you are." He called after it.

The crow fluffed in offense, its neck elongating to shoot a nasty caw back at him.

Naruto opened his mouth to reply-

And all hell broke loose.

The crow cawed once more and took off, fleeing from some unseen force. Naruto didn't have long to ponder what this new threat was.

Suddenly, and without warning, the waters of the bay erupted. Everything happened too fast after that. A great hulking creature, tall as a skycraper and twice as wide, dragged itself out of the ocean, smashing through the Golden Gate Bridge as it hauled its hulking bulk onto dry land. Uzumaki Naruto, despite all that he'd seen and said and done over the centuries of his endless reincarnation-was stricken speechless. His brain refused to believe, to comprehend, what it was seeing. And when it finally did, he only managed one sound:

Naruto whistled softly.

"Well, that's...new."

This thing was a monster, plain and simple. Words alone couldn't even begin to quantify the enormity -or deformity- of this big brute-only that it seemed intent upon one thing, as its slavering jaws crunched down upon a building, tramping dozens of terrified bystanders beneath its bulk. There was no offering of peace from this alien entity. No offer of parley. It had only one purpose.

Destruction.

For a long moment Naruto considered just leaving the city to its fate; he'd never felt much for the Americans. But a thorn of pride pricked him and held him back. Thanks to his new tenants, it was well and truly within his power to stop this creature. It might be difficult after all these years, yet surely he was up to the task. He could hear their screams even from here, feel their terror. Anxiety. Fear. _No._ he shook his head._ Its not my fight. I'm done playing the hero.' _He tried to ignore the sounds. Those of children weeping. Mothers screaming. '_Its not my fight. Not my fight, not-_

He could hear a little girl crying.

In that instant, as he watched it lay wast to the bay area, something stirred. People were screaming. Crying. Dying. Was he really going to leave them? He supposed he already knew that answer. Sapphire eyes stained themselves a sick, slitted scarlet. The dark chakra he'd kept locked away all these years came roaring back. He started walking back into the water, forsaking his newly dried clothes as the change began. Bones popped and bulged, his skeleton forcibly rearranging itself as he began to grow to inhuman proportions.

By the time he was completely submerged, his body was almost completely covered in orange fur, shimmering with bleak energies, dread energies that burned his flesh and twisted his mouth into a snarling snout. He'd not felt this for ages, adrenaline burning through his veins as he slogged forward into a run. This was but one of the nine inhabiting him. The strongest. Containing the Juubi had been impossible, he'd been forced to alll but separate it back into its lesser forms. And seal those forms within himself.

The bay was surprisingly deep. It hid him well, his body little more than a dark shape beneath the water. The monster, whatever it was, paid no attention to him, focused instead on wreaking as much havoc as possible on the shoreline while it could. It neither saw now the massive fox lurking behind it until it was far too late. With a long, triumphant roar, Kurama emerged from the water, nine tails lashing as the shore, propelling it at the monstrosity with all the speed of a hellfire missile.

It saw the Kaiju and swiveled down to sink its teeth deep into its neck, those deadly fangs plunging through muscle and sinew and bone as though they were made of wet tissue paper. A single bite. That was all it took to get the things attention. Then the beast went berserk. It bucked, writhing against this new and unexpected foe. But its body was too large, unable to reach around and pluck off the larger beast slamming it down to the concrete, then the ground, then the sand, then the water...

Naruto wrenched again, yanking the strange creature away from the city and into deeper water. His gums stung from where they'd tasted the thing's blood, his regeneration working frantically to restore his teeth even as the beast blundered around toward him. Naruto opened his maw and spat. The partially formed bijudama sheered straight through his prey, leaving its body to crumple like a house of cards.

The Kaiju Lost its footing and toppled sideways, away from the city and back into the bay. The water boiled, reacting to the mixture of salt and the abomination's corrosive blood. The motions of its large arms became less and less coordinated. Its mishappen skull began to sink below the waves. He didn't wait. Scarce had it fallen than he began to charge another blast, this one swelling before his snout in a tide of dark onyx. Feeble, the beast tried to rise-

Naruto roared and fired again.

The year was 2013. The month of August. Today was the eleventh day.

_The day Trespasser hit San Francisco._

* * *

**A/N: There we go! My first official NarutoxPacific Rim Crossover! Not sure if Naruto is going to get his own jeager or not. I'll leave that to ya'll. Pairing is NarutoxMako, folks! Hope ya'll enjoy all of the insane monster fighting action that is to come! Also, a fair bit of humor, as you'll see. It explores what happened before the movie and of course, during it.**

**So...in the Immortal Words of Atlas...**

**...Review, Would You Kindly? And of course...enjoy the Preview!**

**(Preview)**

_"This is crazy. You know that, right? You're fucking crazy. Giant robots? That shit'll never work."_

_Naruto cocked his head aside at Stacker Pentecost and fought the urge to laugh. The man was quiet. Authoritative. British. Everything he loathed. He'd never been one for authority, and this new JAEGER program quite literally smacked of it. Figures. he thought. You do one good deed and the world thinks you're a saint. Make one mistake, and yer the fucking devil. He had offered his own plan, one that was vying with that of this odd and, in his opinion, doomed to fail._

_His was better. Take the other biju out of him-save Kurama-and use it to empower eight new Jinchuuriki. of his choosing Creatures far superior to...bots made of tin._

_The pilot looked him up and down with thinly veiled scorn. "This coming from a green recruit."_

_"Recruit...?" The hybrid spat, took another long drag of his cigar. Then he blew smoke in the man's face. "With all due respect, I got the first Kaiju kill." A gloved finger thrust itself into the man's uniformed chest. "That gives me bragging rights. And besides, my plan is better."_

_Stacker Pentecost looked on the verge of apocalyptic fury._

_"Bloody hell, do you hear yourself?! Are you insane?!"_

_"Not at all." Naruto laughed; it was a soft, throaty sound. "I'm just saying. What better way to fight monters..._

_Blue eyes flashed red._

_...than with actual monsters?"_

**R&amp;R =D**


	2. A Beast Apart

**A/N: Still I return again! Pretty quick update, eh?! Things have been absolutely crazy for me as of the last few months what with the surgeries and all, but now at long last, I feel I can devote my attentions to this fic anew as I've intended to do! Of course, now that they're not cutting me OPEN anymore to work on my heart I've also come up with a quite a few new ideas! I can promise ya'll that the next few chappys are going to be nothing short of absolutely brilliant! So sorry for the wait! There's a bit of a long author's note this time, because there are a few matters I want to address.**

****But I also want to bring something to your attention. I've been putting this off for a while, but this needed to be done. I have PURGED many of my older works and begun updating those that truly are works of art. That's right, I've either deleted or adopted off many of the stories that I will no longer be continuing. Fear not, my most popular fics will remain, but most of my old stuff from back in 2008 and 2009, when I had no idea what I was doing is being all but removed from the site. Out with the old, in with the new, as they say! Still, if anyone is interested in any of my old stuff, say the word and its yours to continue. But I've held ya'll up long enough!****

**Now that we've addressed all those issues, I just wanted to say: Thank you. To all of you who reviewed and have yet to review, and especially those who noticed my improved writing style. You all know who you are. I look forward to hearing more from you as we continue down the strange, convulted path that is this story. I honestly cannot believe I've already gotten so many reviews for the first chapter alone, and now its so damn high I could cry with joy! Hopefully I won't dissapoint you guys! **

**Which brings me to my next point of interest. I'm sick. Really sick of getting flak from people for dedicating time and precious resources to my works, only to be assailed by those who are always dissapointed that I'm not going to stick to canon in some of my stories. This is fanfiction, damnit!**

**The latest chapter of Imperfection is a prime example of this and its beginning to grate on my last nerve. So, I...say this. I'm DONE. Just, done. If ya'll don't want to read some of my works then I won't grace you with them. My health is atrocious, and I'm STILL dedicating time to this site, knowing that some like my works. But I'm sick and tirned of all the hate I've been gettingin this last year- which is seriously causing me to wonder whether I should just drop this site altogether and move on. I dunno. Maybe I just don't like it when I've devoted so much time to something and a large group of people dedicate themselves to tearing it down. Who knows?**

**Truth be told, I got the idea for the concept by getting a glimpse at the preview of a certain show. Eternity it was called. I'd been planning on a Pacific Rim crossover for some time but when I was able to glimpse the footage I just thought, hey this could work. And thus, this idea was born. Again, I own nothing! Now...**

**...behold the fruits of my labor!**

_"I am...the last person you want to look up to."_

_~?_

**A Beast Apart**

They were calling them Kaiju now.

It was the Japanese word for monster. Naruto found the term oddly...fitting, in a bitter way. A Japanese man had been the one to take the bugger down, so it was only fair that a Japanese term be used to name the big lug that had nearly destroyed an entire city block. _Trespasser_ was little more than a radioactive skeleton now-a hulking carcass standing out of the bay area of San Francisco. Taken down by a giant fox, a kitsune, of alll things. He imagined that was something of a riot back in his country. Teams were still examining the corpse, scavengers picking it apart.

Bloody Americans...

It was child's play to slip away undetected in the aftermath; he simply dove back into the ocean and popped out again few miles away in human form. No one made the connection. After that, he returned to Japan. Ran his company. Life went on. It was peaceful again. Boring, but peaceful. The world had mourned their dead, investigated, and moved on. They thought it was a onetime occurrence-no one wanted to think that this might happen again. And in hindsight, no one thought it would.

Six months later, the Philippines came under Kaiju attack.

* * *

Manilla bore a large population just like San Francisco. The Kaiju successfully leveled half of the town before he'd arrived and managed to distract it. There was no time for evacuation here, either. Hundreds died. That would've crippled him once before emotionally; now it just pissed him off. And anger gave him strength. It'd kept him fighting for the last hour. But enough was enough. Even a biiju had its limits, and he could feel his patience slipping. Why wouldn't this damn thing die?! It was like bloody beetle!

_Focus!_

**"Motherfuck!"**

Naruto roared in pain as one of his tails flopped away from him in a shower of gore, his red eyes glinting furiously in the evening light. For a moment, the pain nearly crippled him. Then, through the agonies, he tracked his falling tail, realizing it was about to crush harmless bystanders. Couldn't have that. A paw lashed out-swatting the severed appendage away into the sea before it could crush them. Satisified that he'd at least kept a few more mortals from dying today, his gaze snapped back to the Kaiju bearing down on him.

Too slow.

His distraction cost him.

Scarce had he turned than the creature pounced, driving the fox down into the ground, carving a path of destruction deeper into the town. It didn't so much hurt as it did sing, its caustic claws dripping acidid blood onto his fur, scarring his kitsune form even further. He'd been careless. Underestimated those nasty little pincers. For too long he'd relied on surprise and stealth to aid him, even in his transformed state. It had served him a long time in his career...but he was beginning to realize that nothing short of overwhelming force would bring these creatures down.

Stupd insect-looking little fucker.

His tails coiled about him, paws digging into the ground as the beast battled him backwards. Momentum ground to a halt. They pushed against one another for a moment longer, monster against monster-neither willing to budge. Then the Kaiju struck. Teeth penetrated fur and found flesh, sinking deep into bone and sinew. Snarlign, Naruto dropped and struck back.

The insect kaiju screamed as a tail cleaved into his collarbone, keening now as its right arm flopped away. It clamored back in retreat, scrambling towards the sea. Naruto bounded after it, snatching up a leg in his jaws and tearing it free before the creature could return to the safety-and stealth-of deeper waters. It was trying to get away from him, to maintain a better distance by which it might fight. Losing a leg changed that. Naruto snarled and spat the limb out, fighting not to cry out as the acid burned the inside of his mouth.

Once more the Kaiju screamed, its stride faltering as the larger predator came after it. This time, he was careful.

This one was wilier than the last; it was ready for him. Its four eyes watched his every movement, tracked every twitch. Its spindly legs were all too quick to scurry its long spindly body away if he tried to nuke it with a bijudama. It knew. Somehow, the creature _knew_ he wouldn't risk human lives. Just as it knew it couldn't stand up to a tailed beast bomb. There was one predictiable thing about the Kaiju, though. The neck. Always the neck. The weak spot.

Feigning a bijudama, he watched as, predictably, the beast scrambled out of the way-

_Gotcha!_

The transformed jinchuuriki tracked with the movements and leapt upwards, surprising the Kaiju. It hesitated, unsure what to make of this sudden display of acrobatics. Too late it realized its mistake. Crashing down on his prey like a furry red meteor, Kurama pinned the smaller creature beneath it. Fangs found flesh. Once again the acidic blood stung his mouth and boiled his tongue. With it, came the fire. Naruto ignored it. A snarl on his lips, the fox bit deeper than ever before, using its larger body to pin the smaller Kaiju to the seabead even as those deadly incissors clamped down. It shook its head in a savage twist.

_Pop._

Hundun's neck broke with a wrenching crack. Still it fought on. Claws gouged at his face, tore into his eyes. Another yank settled the matter. The beast went still. Naruto stomped down on its hollow chest, waiting for a sign of life, any indication that the beast was merely feigning death like the last. Still a third flung it clear out to sea.

It died like the rest.

The year was now 2014. The month February. Today was the fifth day.

_The day Hundun fell._

* * *

The world was clamoring for an answer now.

Naruto watched the newsfeeds with thinly veiled irritation, all the while cursing the governments inability to do anything. Again, he'd stepped in and did what the military couldn't. But not before people died. The second one had proved itself more difficult to best in batttle. Stronger. And his victory came with another more vile cost-he began to amass a following. Word of this 'creature' killing Kaiju spread. Cults were formed. Not just to the beasts, but him as well. Everything was falling apart. There was chaos. Looting. Mass protests.

Rioting in the streets.

Everywhere except Japan. The land of the rising sun seemed to take pride in the fact that there was a living kitsune; they believed that it was a guardian deity watching over them. More cults. More worshippers. People began asking him to come forward on television, desperate to know the identity of their saviour. He didn't answer them. There were even some-imbeciles!-who thought the Kaiju was _hunting _the fox, and thus attacking population centers to draw it out of hiding.

He'd no desire to subject himself to that scrutiny.

Still he held out to the hope that this might all end with some semblance of his life intact. That was before Cabo, Mexico. And the fourth-in Sydney. They just kept coming. One after the other, closer and closer together until finally, he made a mistake.

He wasn't fast enough with the fifth. The governments panicked and nuked it before he could get arrive. Took out half of a city. By then, he was beginning to realize the truth. This simply wasn't going to stop. By then the world knew it had a protector. They needed hope. A symbol. The governments of the world, were powerless to protect their people. They'd formed a comittee now, the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. The damned thing had plenty of bark, but no bite. What could they possibly do? Talk the Kaiju to death? Not bloody likely. But there was one thing _he _could do.

It was almost two years since his decision to remain anonymous. The next day, he discarded that anonymity.

Come out of the cold, so to speak.

No one believed him at first when he called a press conference at his mansion, promising to unveil the true identity of the monster fox who'd saved four cities from total annihilations. No one. Until he transformed. That silenced his critics straight away. They could bark and bray all they wanted but it was impossible to deny the video. The physical act of watching a human transform into a thirty foot plus fox right before your eyes. And before the collective eyes of billions of viewers, he did jus that on the front lawn.

The world went nuts.

All negative opinion of the _Kitsune_ vanished overnight. Namikaze-Uzumaki!-Naruto went from a popular CEO to a worldwide icon. A hero. Now there was pressure on him to succeed, to minimize the loss of life as much as he could. Reporters hounded him daily. For every victory, his actions were lauded. Whenever someone died, he was blamed.

Well, there was _one_ positive amidst this thrice blighted celebrity status. Stock in his company _skyrocketed. _Everyone was suddenly buying up his Namikaze technology, convinced it could somehow save them from their demise. Portable shield generators and body armor became all the rage. It couldn't stop a Kaiju from stomping on you like a bug, but anything shot of that and you'd survive. Probably. Thank god for waivers.

They believed he became this "thing" thanks to something his company had created. It was child's play to maintain the lie; that his technology, his serum_-really how gullible could you get_-had given him this ability. Yes, it was entirely possible to create eight more and yes, he _did_ have a plan. By that point he'd become something of a godamn celebrity.

But the world hadn't been idle. They'd taken actios of their own. Finally, the rest of the world showed their teeth.

They were calling it the Jaeger program. Jaegar meant "hunter" in german. Now that, Naruto didn't like. On one hand he was grateful to have the goverments finally forgoing their differences and pooling their resources in an incredible effort to combat this menace. In the span of sixteen months, while he'd been off playing hero, they were scraping together the first generations. Mark I they were called. Little more than walking nuclear reactors with arms and legs. When the first of them, a hulking took down a Kaiju, the world rejoiced.

Which brought him to the here and now.

The year was 2016. The month of May. It was the fifteenth day.

Only a few hours before the _Onibaba Incident_.

* * *

_(Tokyo Shatterdome)_

"This is crazy." He shook his head from side to side, his blond bangs swaying from the motion. "You know that, right? You're fucking crazy. Giant robots? That shit'll never work. Have you seen that prototype? What the hell kind of name is Brawler Yukon, anyway? Scrape that shit together in sixteen months, and it _barely _takes down a Kaiju. Luck. You barely won _your_ last fight, as I recall." His voice echoed down the angular coriridors of the Shatterdome, the first of its kind.

By all rights it looked like it had been cobbled together at the last minute. Hell, they were still _building_ it. Shoddy worksmanship at its finest. But, his disdainfull were not directed at the one walking beside him. He was here because this was his home-it was his duty to protect it. Not some damned tub of lard bucket of bolts! Every step made in theisshatterdome felt like sacrilege to him...but, he swallowed the spite and forced himself

"Its not luck," the man countered, his dark face drawing down in a frown. "Its skill."

"Yeah. My skills took down Kaijiu in _half_ the time."

"Now _that,_ was bloody luck."

"Keep telling yourself that, _baka yarou."_

That got a blink out of the man. "I'm sorry, what was that last bit?"

Naruto cocked his head aside at Stacker Pentecost and fought the urge to laugh. The man was quiet. Authoritative. British. Everything he loathed. Supposedly the man was some great war hero. Didn't matter. He'd run all manner of missions in the past, but this was his first time here in Tokyo. Naruto didn't like that. Outsider. Tresspasser. He spoke crap for Japanese. It was just too tempting to mess with him by using his own native language, rather than good ol' english.

He'd never been one for authority from the very beginning, and this new Jaegar program, quite literally smacked of it. _Figures._ he thought. _You do one good deed and the world thinks you're a saint. Make one mistake, and yer the fucking devil._ He had offered his own plan, one that was vying with that of this odd and, in his opinion, doomed to fail idea.

One victory did not win a war.

"He has a point you know."

Naruto cocked his head aside at the new voice, frowning now as another pilot appeared from an adjacent corridor. "Superior strength and overwhelming force doesn't always guarantee a victory."

Tamsin Sevier. She wasn't much to look at in her suit. British. Red hair, framing an angular face. Green eyes. Skinny. Pale. Co-pilot of Coyote Tango.

Also annoying as hell. Filled with idealistic hope for this program. She'd see the failure of it soon enough.

Naruto shook his head. "This damn idea's gonna get the both of you killed."

His was better. Take the other biju out of him-save Kurama-and use it to empower eight new Jinchuuriki of his choosing. Creatures far superior to...bots made of tin. It was entirely doable, thanks to the Rinnegan. Even if the proccess killed him, he'd just reincarnate all over again and end up sopping wet or in some distant place. Nothing a littlle wind jutsu or a Hiraishi couldn't fix. And then there was the matter of training people to try and handle the awesome might of a Tailed Beast.

The beasts themselves were sane inside of him; they didn't want this world destroyed, anymore than he did. He was certain he could find hosts for them. And by keeping Kurama within him, he maintained the means to beat some sense into them should they get any ideas. And thanks to his immortality, it cost almost nothing-save a great deal of pain-to extricate tailed beast from his body. Minimum risk.

Maximum reward.

And maximum disdain.

Needless to say, Pentecost didn't agree with his plans.

The pilot looked him up and down with thinly veiled scorn. "This coming from a green recruit."

"Recruit...?" The hybrid spat, took another long drag of his cigar. Then he blew smoke in the man's face. "With all due respect, _I_ got the first Kaiju kill. And the second, buddy. Oh yeah, and the third. And in case you've forgotten, the fucking _fourth."_ A gloved finger thrust itself into the man's uniformed chest. "That gives me bragging rights, junior. For life. And besides, my plan is better."

"Turning teenagers into monsters." Tam quipped, her accented voice conveying the full weight of her disbelief. "Yeah. That's _much_ better."

Blue eyes flashed a warning.

"Hey, better than walking in a rustbucket."

Stacker Pentecost looked on the verge of apocalyptic fury.

"Bloody hell, do you hear yourself?! Are you _insane?"_

"Not at all." Naruto laughed; it was a soft, throaty sound. "I'm just saying. What better way to fight monters...

Blue eyes flashed red.

...than with actual monsters?"

Whatever the Jeager pilot might've said to that died as a klaxxon blared overhead.

"Attention, all hands." A monotone, female voice announced over the speakers, slicing into their arguement like a hot knife through butter. "We have movement in the Breach. Repeat, Kaiju, detected. Bogie closing fast-has made landfall in sector seven. One hundred and eighty eight feet. Two hundred and forty tons. Signature and category...two. Codename, Onibaba."

There was a momen of collective silence between the trio. Naruto smirked.

"Well, then." he said. "Lets see that your little toy can do then, eh?" The shinobi didn't walk to the hangar.

He _ran._

* * *

Mako Mori was crying.

Tiny hands clutched at her little red shoe as though it were a lifeline. Perhaps it was. It was the last semblance of her normal life; one that had been violently upheaved only a few minutes ago. The Kaiju had hit without warning. No one was ready for the attack, no one was prepared. Her parents had tried to get her to a car but they'd been too slow. They'd told her to run. So, she had. She'd run as fast as her little legs could carry her, away from the giant monster. But now...now now she couldn't find them. Mako was alone. Frightened.

_Scared._

She wanted her Mama. Papa. They would make everything better.

So she wandered the streets in search for them. But they were nowhere to be found. Now that she looked around, she realized that no one was anywhere. The entire city was abandoned. Had they all run away from the monster? Did it run away, too? She didn't know. Now she could hear sounds. Like thunder. But that couldn't be right...

That was when she saw it.

As if from the depths of her darkest nightmare, the monster thundered out of a nearby building only a few blocks away-smashing through it as though it were made of tissue paper. Giant pincers tore through a nearby, snipping fifty thousand tons of solid steel in twine. It screeched loudly, its beady eyes tracking-

Mako froze.

She willled herself to be small, to not be seen. She tried to hunch down into a ball-something-anything, to hide herself from the cruel crustacean bearing down on her. Then, almost inexplicably, it paused. Those dread eyes lowered, suddenly noticing the tiny human in its path. Mako offered a prayer to the gods, hoping with all their might that they would protect her. They didn't. It saw her.

Mako screamed_._

The Kaiju shrieked.

Crying out turned and fled in the opposite direction. She ran as hard as she could, sobbing. Onibaba roared after in pursuit. Her heart pounded in her chest as it closed the distance, as she rounded a corner, screaming for dear life.

This time, something screamed back. It wasn't the call of a Kaiju. It was...

_Something else._

Her bare feet skidded to a halt as a flash of orange and red suddenly appeared before her. As another beast emerged from the street. A fox. Kitsune. At least as large as the crab. Nine tails stood stiff and erect behind it, standing at the ready. Mako gulped. She remembered hearing about this creature. It was suppose to be good...

...right?

The newcomer towered her just like the Kaiju, and just like the beast, it noticed Mako almost immediately. Saw her. She ducked down as it reached forward, covering her head with her hands, eyes scrunching shut in fear. But instead of crushing her flat the fox simply -gently- pushed her aways to the rustled against her bare cheek. Its paw was warm and gentle-a stark contrast to that cruel, cold crab that had been pursuing her a moment ago.

Quivering she stared up at it. Into its eyes. It looked at her; its snout inclined a fraction of an inch. Intelligence.

It only took an instant to nod, but in that instant the Kaiju seemed to tire of waiting. It shrieked a challenge. Turning away from her, the fox answered with a snarl of her own, the beast bounding over and past her. The Kaiju shrieked and met his charge with one of its own. Mako yelped, scrambling for cover as the gods collided.

And the battle was on.

* * *

Nearly an hour later, Coyote Tango lumbered forward into the city of Tokyo.

Slow and inexorable, much like some great, moving metal monolith, the titan strode into the heart of Japan, its massive helm turning this way and that as it searched for any sign of the Kaiju. Signs of its passing were everywhere; fires burned where it had carved a path deeper into Tokyo. Broken bodies lay scattered about the street, deep claw marks gouging the buildings. Stacker frowned. He had a feeling Naruto had gotten here ahead of them, but there was not so much as a trace of him anywhere ahead. Nor the Kaiju.

It was chilling.

Each step was like thunder in the heavens, its body moving in perfect symmetry. There was no distinction between mortal and machine. The Neural Handshake was like a work of art. The Drift was silent. No words were needed. Pentecost knew what Sevier was thinking as did she him. Because they were one. No words neccessary. Every thought was one and the same. He knew what was nagging at her-she didn't need to say anything at all. Tamsin said it anyway.

"You think he's the real deal?"

"I think he's a godamn idiot."

Stacker fought off the urge to roll his eyes. Again. He knew who she was talking about. Naruto. The hotshot hybrid who was determined to see the Jaegar program die before it could truly be born. He didn't understand the man's animosity for the program but he knew a cocky bastard when he saw one. He'd taken down four Kaiju and saved countless lives before the PPDC had gotten its act together. And he was grateful. In a strange way, he even respected the man. He knew how to fight; what needed to be done. What was right. But, try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to endorse what he saw as madness.

Why the hell would you want to take innocent people and make them...into those things? Granted the fox had proved himself powerful and almost indestructible...but could someone else handle that power? It remained to be seen. Resolving himself to the task at hand, he turned his gaze forward once more.

"Now, where the hell is that-

_"Watch out!"_

The warning came out of nowhere, piercing their minds like a dagger. Too late.

Pentecost felt it first, as a mountain of debris came flying at them, crashng into Coyote Tango from behind. The Jaeger reeled. Before they could get their balanace, Tamsin's side of the Conn-Pod collapsed inward. The pain was excruciating. Sparks shot from the damaged wiring and soot trickled through a ten-foot gap into Tango's head. Looking up with his own eyes-no sensors neccessary-Stacker Pentecost got his first good look at Onibaba. He saw it crashing through the building. Watched as it swung around and down, severing their right arm.

Warnings went off at the same time that Pentecost registered that Tamsin was down. She lay limp in her station, unconcsious and still. He called to her, to which her body jerked once more and collapsed for good. Just like that. The pain of losing the phsyically linked arm must've been too much, he realized.

"Tam? Tam!" No response. Either she was gone, or she'd been knocked cold. Neither prospect was appealing.

"Godamnit," he swore. That was all he had time to do before he felt the full neural load came crashing down on him. Stacker felt himself burn. Almost immediately it felt like his head was trapped in a vice, pressure alll but squeezing the sanity out of his skull. A trickle of blood ran down his nose and dripped to the floor. With an effort he raised his arm and Coyote Tango, good old girl that she was, complied. He put everything he had into into an uppercut that staggered the kaiju long enough for him to pull the arm back and stagger away,

_Plasma Cannon_, he commanded, and she obeyed without hesitation as he pivoted the Jaeger away from Onibaba and into a defensive position.

Its fist rearranged itself into a barrel housing with four symmetrically amplifier lens arrays around a circular gap that extended up inside the Jaeger's forearm. Flanges rotated on the wrist and locked the Plasma-Cannon assemby into place. Steam and static flares crackled around it as it powered up.

"C'mon, you sonuva bitch." he growled, feeling the burning slowly circle his arm as the crab hovered only a few feet only had two shots in this arm. Needed to make it count. But it seemed nervous. Hesitant. As though it knew what he was trying to do. It shouldn't be that smart. "Come on!" he goaded! Still it dithered. What was making it hesitate-

_Boom._

"!"

Kurama erupted up and out of the wreckage of a nearby building with a furious yowl, its claws closing down on the back of the unprepared Kaiju and slamming it into the ground. A bijudama charged within its jaws. Onibaba spun and tried to face this new threat but it proved too weak, finding its hard shells tangled by the nine tails of the predator. Pentecost opened fire a split second later. The blast arced forward, denting into the Kaiju's thick shell and staggering-in the same instant that the fox opened its maw once more. Even from here, he could see the dark light glowing behind its jaws. Man and beast, their eyes met.

_Do it._ the voice, Naruto's voice, trickled through his head once more._ Now!_

Pentecost cycled the cannon again.

There was a moment of tense silence as his charge and Bijudama cycled. Beneath Naruto, the Kaiju bucked, breaking free. Naruto let it go, drawing back a pace as the Plasma Cannon and his own Bijudama accelerated to maximum velocity. Then they leapt forward as one.

The subsuquent explosion reduced the Kaiju's body to a mass of pulpy gore. Blue blood spattered upward in a geyser of blood, dropping back down to spatter the city block a sicky Kaiju blue. Naruto shook his coat with a growl, cleaning his fur from the gross paste. Its head tilted back, snout pointing towards the skies, and loosed a long, triumphant roar. Despite their difference, the pilot felt a smile tug at his face. With an effort he hit the release catch in his harness and disconnected himself from the Jeager. Tam stirred groggily in her own harness.

After checking to make certain she was still breathing, Pentecost swiftly scaled the lader and opened the hatch. Fresh air fell in his face, stinging his eyes with ash. Clamoring out of the batted bot, he watched as the fox lowered its snout, seemingly smirking in its triumph.

Then, before Stacker's eyes, the beast began to shrink. Red fur receded, exposing human skin and a shock of blonde hair. Bones rearranged themselves into human shape, and form. Within the span of only a minute or so, he was a human once again. And odd, he seemed to be approaching someone. Someone, hiding in the wreckage of a burned out building.

A little girl, holding a red shoe.

_"Are you alright?"_ he asked in Japanese. She looked at him in disbelief, as though unable to believe that he'd actually spoken to her in his native tongue. _"What's your name?"_ A small hand curled around his. A tiny tear rolled down her dirty face. At last, she managed to find her voice. This person was the fox, she realized. They were one and the same. She recalled that warm, furry paw pushing her out of harms way, watching as he'd stood between her and certain death. This was the same person.

"You killed the monster...?" she asked at last.

"Yes." he affirmed with a slow nod. "My name's Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto. And you are?"

"Mako." she sniffled in reply, the tiniest of smiles lighting her visage. "M-Mako Mori...

"Where are you parents, Mako?"

...gone." her eyes glistened wetly.

_Aaaaaargh, pluck at my heartstrings why dontcha?_ Naruto wasn't quite sure what spurred him to embrace Mako. Only that he did. She didn't resist. Tiny, quiet sobs muffled themselves into his jacket, tears staining the worn fabric. "It's alright," he cooed at her, a hand rising to stroke the at her back. She only cried harder. Naruto held her tightly.

"It's going to be alright...

* * *

**A/N: There we go! My first official NarutoxPacific Rim Crossover! Not sure if Naruto is going to get his own jeager or not. I'll leave that to ya'll. Pairing is NarutoxMako, folks! Hope ya'll enjoy all of the insane monster fighting action that is to come! Also, a fair bit of humor, as you'll see. It explores what happened before the movie and of course, during it. And trust me folks, this won't be alll sunshine and roses. We're gonna see some death here, and a few familiar faces from other genres, as you'll see...**

**So...in the Immortal Words of Atlas...**

**...Review, Would You Kindly? And of course...enjoy the Preview! Surprise!**

**(Preview)**

_Naruto frowned down at his protege. _

_"Are you ready, Jodie?"_

_She nodded once._

_"Its not too late to back out," he warned. "No one's making_

_"I want to do this...sir." she added, almost as an afterthought._

_"Very well." he'd given her the chance. Now it was time to see what she could do. "I want you to access one tail of chakra."_

_She nodded, her eyes branching with strain. "Like...this?"_

_Blue fire engulfed her body, tendrils of otherwordly energy working in tandem to form the cloak. And remarkably, it held._

_She was a survivor, this one. Tough as nails, with something to prove. A young girl from San Francisco. Jodie Holmes was her name, as he recalled. The first candidate of the Biju Program. She would be serving as the host of the Niibi. The Two-Tailed cat. Matatabi. In the end the PPDC had chosen to back both plans, leading to the increased production of Jeagers as a whole, and the first of many promising students for him. Backed by a colossal amount of support for his own plan, he was certain it wouldn't fail..._

_...though he wasn't certain about subjecting Mako Mori to this. The girl had a lot of anger in her from the loss of her family; and hate was the last thing you wanted to bring when merging with a Biju. But Jodie, seemed different. Eager. Hopeful. She hadn't lost anyone to the Kaiju. And her unique...gift, allowed her to merge with a tailed beast despite lacking chakra coils. That was the stickler right there. He couldn't create chakra in a body that didn't have it. The biju, went boding with its host, had to carve them from scratch. The procedure was..._

_...painful, to say the last. _

_But Jodie was alive. Only a week after being bonded to Matabi she was up and about, walking again. Damned if she wasn't determined. Her body trembling with the strain, she managed to hold the chakra at bay, bend it to her will._

_"Good, good." he soothed her, his hand daring to brush her shoulder. "Just stay calm. I know its a bit much to take in. Don't chase the rabbit. Its a lot like piloting a Jeager...minus the electronics and that neural handshake gobbledy gook. She's trying to work with you, but the chakra itself has a mind of its own. You need to reign in your emotions, maintain control. Think positive thoughts. If you don't, it will most likely-_

_He ducked as a tail swept over his head, shattering a walkway. He sighed, pinching the brow of his nose._

_"That."_

**R&amp;R =D**


	3. To Make a Monster

**A/N: Still I return again! Pretty quick update, eh?! Things have been absolutely crazy for me as of the last few months what with the surgeries and all, but now at long last, I feel I can devote my attentions to this fic anew as I've intended to do! Of course, now that they're not cutting me OPEN anymore to work on my heart I've also come up with a quite a few new ideas! I can promise ya'll that the next few chappys are going to be nothing short of absolutely brilliant! So sorry for the wait! **

**Now...**

**...behold the fruits of my labor!**

_"Is a Biju better than a Kaiju? I don't know. Why don't you ask their corpses?"_

_~Uzumaki Naruto (In answer to a reporter's inquiry)_

**To Make a Monster**

-and then I tell the guy, that's not a Kaiju...that's my ex-wife!"

Stacker Pentecoost had never laughed so hard in all his life.

After rendering Onibaba little more than paste in downtown Tokyo and returning to the shatterdome, they'd been hailed as heroes. From their they decided to celebrate the only way men in their line of work knew how, partaking in an age old tradition that had existed since time immemorial.

They shared a stiff drink.

For once, he and Naruto seemed to be in complete agreement on the matter. And despite his earlier disdain for the man's plan, he felt his dislike for the whiskered warrior had mellowed somewhat since their victory at Tokyo. So much so, that he hadn't been at all opposed to the idea of sharing a few cups of sake with him. Then a few had turned into several, and he could now feel the beginnings of a much-needed buzz beginning to hover at the edge of his vision. It relaxed him. Loosened his tongue.

"You, my good man," he drawled aloud, the words rising over the din of the bar, slurring slightly after having ingested so much alchohol, "Are the most, insufferable, arrogant, and _godamned_ idiot to walk this planet." An arm reached over and slapped his companion on the back, the motion causing the smaller man to lurch slightly in his seat. "And I mean that, with the _warmest_ of affections." That one actually earned him a bit of laugh from the blond, his whiskered cheeks dimpling in a rare smirk.

"This coming from the man who said I was insane." he raised his hand. Stacker mirrored the motion.

"And you are." Pentecost countered with a sly smile as their glasses clinked together. "But at least you know how to fight."

"Phe! So nice to know that you're using me for my combat skills!" Naruto's retort was sharp, but the words were without rancour. "You weren't so bad yourself out there, ya know. I heard you piloted that thing yourself, did ya?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to where, even now, the mangled body of Coyote Tango could be seen only a few yards deeper into the shatterdome. The Jeager was wounded but not broken standing tall and unbowed, proud of her victory as techs worked to reattach her severed arm. This had been her tenth mission.

It might very well be _his_ last.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of another Mark I Jeager, _Tacit Ronin, _limping in for repairs of its by husband and wife duo Duc and Kaori Jessop. Unlike Coyote Tango this beast was sleek and jagged edges, as befitting of the name given it upon creation. Bearing two large, retractable blades on either of its arms, she was built for swift, fast strikes. Not fights of attrition. She'd been stationed near the miracle mile only a few out from Tokyo when damned Onibaba had just run up and over her. Then it had breached the city. It was a miracle she'd managed to come in at all.

The Mark I's were all well and good it was said, but with bigger and bigger Kaiju emerging from the Breach, they needed bigger, better Jeagers to combat them. They needed to evolve.

Perhaps if he'd had a better bot, he wouldn't have come so close to destruction today. Either way, it didn't change the fact that he owed this man his life.

"Well?"

"Hurt like hell," he answered, his voice dropping quietly. The simply act of moving was an effort-or was that the sake? "I've got the scars to prove it."

Naruto nodded sagely. "Its a bitch and a half fighting Kaiju all by yourself." He sighed and his shoulders rolled beneath his dark jacket, producing a harsh pop as the joints pushed together. Then, his eyes flahsed purple and he made a casual tugging motion with his hand. A vacant bottle shot off the rack nearby and smacked into his palm. If he was at all amused by the other man's shock at this unexplained bout of telikene, he did not seem to care. When the bartender shot him a look, he snapped something in Japanese, to which the man returned to cleaning his glass. Naruto sighed.

"I remember that first one in San Francisco. Big bugger. Curved head. What was his name...?"

"Trespasser." the chief supplied.

"Right, right. Trespasser." his head tipped in acknowledgement. "Anyways, I remember biting down on the bastard and suddenly, my mouth was on _fire. _I'd never felt anything like that. Took everything I had to wrestle him out of that bay and into deeper waters to finish him off. If I'd made a mistake he would've had me for dinner. And then there was the last one." His eyes took on a harsh, jaded look, as though he were experiencing some unpleasant memory. "Onibaba clobbered me into a building about five minutes before you came along. If you hadn't been there...

Now it was Pentecost's turn to nod.

"There are some things you can't fight." he said. "Forces of nature. Acts of God. You see a hurricane coming, you get out of the way. But when you're in a Jaeger, suddenly, you can fight the hurricane. You can win." At Naruto's measuring gaze, he ammended his statement. "I suppose the same thing applies to that damned fox of yours."

"Amen to that." Naruto raised his bottle in toast.

"Shame about your partner, though." His words sobered Pentecost just a bit. Tamsin...wouldn't be joining them. Her brain had been rattled around a bit too much; the resulting seizure left her in the ICU. She'd live most likely, but she wouldn't be piloting another Jeager anytime soon. Stacker was certain he had worse news coming; piloting Coyote Tango alone had put an immeasurable strain on his body as well. Coupled with the lack of radiation shielding, alongisde the damage he'd sustained today and, well...the docs said it didn't look good. All those missions, the nuclear core slowly burning at him. All those hours, he'd burned.

"I'm not going to be able to work with you again, am I?" Naruto's unexpected inquiry almost caught him flatfooted. Almost. Because Pentecost realized that it was true. His day in the Jeager program-at least as a pilot-were most likely numbered. Amazingly, he felt shame. He'd realized too late that Namikaze Naruto wasn't some conceited ego-maniac on a power trip. He cared about the world and what happened to it. It would have been well within his power to simply stay hidden and let Onibaba obliterate Coyote Tango. His disgust for the Jeager program was unparelled. All he'd had to do was wait.

Instead he'd stepped in; and because of that, he, Stacker Pentecost, still drew breath. He owed him the truth, at least.

"Probably not."

"Damn." Naruto muttered, his eyes turning dark. "And here I was just starting to like you."

"You'd make one hell of a pilot yourself, you know."

"No, no, no, no," he shook his head _vehemently_ the motion sending his bangs swaying side to side. "You're not sticking me in one of those metal death traps unless I've got no other choice. I like having a feel for where I'm going. Hands on, ya know? Reaction time's better that way. And having someone else rooting through my brain? No thank you."

"If you say so."

Naruto glanced back at him from his perch on the stool. "I do say so."

Inevitably, the conversation drifted toward other topics. One most notable.

"So those eyes...

The man blinked, those rippling, rimmed eyes of violent violet fading away, returning to his true blue.

"Our latest product," the words, and the lie, flowed from his mouth smoothly. Almost painfully easy. "Guess you could say I'm prototyping it. Allows me to push and pull object as I see fit. Wholescale." He waved a hand once again and the sake bottle shot back onto the shelf. "Its still got a few bugs to work out. Headaches, dizziness mostly."

Stacker whistled.

"Handy."

"You have no idea." the blond chortled softly to himself.

Another awkward silence hung between them shortly thereafter.

"So, the girl you rescued...she seems to like you?"

"Mako, you mean." Naruto replied, his voice dropping. "Yeah. Talked with her a bit on the way back. Bit of a chip on her shoulder. I have someone looking after her back at my place now." By someone he meant a clone-though the pilot didn't know that. Now that was a tricky bit, there. If the world learned he could make copies of his own being, well...that was a can of worms he didn't feel like opening.

"What are you going to do with her?"

"Dunno." the young man answered, his glassy blue eyes staring into his reflection on the pristine countertop. "She's got no parents; lost them when Onibaba hit. The only family she _does_ have is an abusive uncle-and I only know him because the man used to work for me before I kicked his ass to the curb. Kami, she's just a kid. Can't put her in a situation like that; and you can't trust the foster system, not these days." He seemed to contemplate his own words for a moment longer, a strange look entering those icy orbs. He didn't like that look. It spelled trouble. "No, I think...

Oh dear.

"I'll look after her myself."

His declaration caused Stacker to choke on his sake. He sputtered.

"You?_ Raise a daughter?"_

"Hey now, I never said she'd be my _kid_ or anything-

He never had a chance to finish that sentence.

Scarce had those words left his lips than a Chinese man with a bowtie, suspenders, and a ducktail haircut barged into the bar. Naruto frowned at the interloper. The man's expression was a look of palpable tension and anxiety, the nervous energy radiating from him enough to immediately set him on edge. He clutched a stack of papers in one hand, the files fluttering in the breeze he created as he hurried over to the two men sitting alone at the counter.

"Tendo?" Pentecost frowned at the sight of him, suddenly sober at the sight of his old friend. "What's wrong?"

Naruto blinked.

_Ah._

Tendo Choi. He worked in the Loccent upstairs. If he was down here, then it must be important.

"The funding just came through from the PPDC." he said quickly, his dark eyes cutting from him and straying to Naruto in unspoken sign. "They saw today's footage of Onibaba...and well, they're backing the project. Its been greenlit." Pentecost took a moment to proccess those words. Damn. He bit back a rueful sigh. So the bureacrats were going through with Naruto's plan after all. It wasn't unexpected, but it still didn't make the old pilot happy. To his credit, the man didn't seem all that smug about it. Still stung, though.

"Well, then." Coughing, he cleared his throat. "I suppose congratulations are in order-

-for both projects." Tendo finished curtly.

The men exchanged a startled glance.

_"Both?"_

A nod.

Naruto started laughing. "Well, damn. That's surprising!"

"They want you to get started right away." To his surprise, one of those files was thrust at _him._ "Here's the list of available candidates." He leafed through it quietly and saw a few names of worthy mention, if only for a passing glance. Jodie Holmes. Isaac Claarke. Samus Aran. John Shepard. Jack Ryan. Raleigh and Yancy Beckette. Their ages and backgrounds varied. Wildly. Bemused, he closed the file, resolving to go over it at a late date. As he closed the file, he realized Tendo had just passed one to Pentecost. The tech was smiling.

"You've been promoted, sir." he saluted sharply. Stacker blinked. He hadn't heard about that. It wasn't the rank of Marshal, not yet, but it was something. A position of command.

"Hell of a way to take me off pilot duty."

"Hey," Naruto laughed again. "Look on the bright side! Now I won't have to pull your scrawny ass out of the fire again!"

Moments later, Pentecost joined him in his laughter.

* * *

Raising a little girl was not easy.

Emphasis on the _"not!"_

It was easy enough to keep her clothed and fed, and she didn't lack for human contact or entertainment. That, however, was where everything snowballed.

Mako was a very inquisitive girl, and right away he realized she'd developed a keen interest in both Biju and Jeagers. Naruto wasn't entirely sure which worried him more. The idea of having her in one of those Jeager's someday or the prospect of having a malevolent construct of chakra trapped inside her, feeding off of her anger. But she was determined to learn as much as she could about the strange entities that had saved her life in Tokyo and quite frankly, the kid didn't know how to take no for an answer.

So Naruto, to his own gall, answered those questions as best he could-and took her with him when he traveled to the Shatterdomes as much as possible. It was an inevitability that she'd see something sooner or later, something that she was not meant to see.

Approximately one month after he'd taken her under his wing, little Mako Mori saw one of those things.

She saw another _Biju._

* * *

It was supposed to be a simple test run in Russia. Kaiju had hit here before and failed so it had been deemed a low risk area to conduct an open air test.

Naruto, along with the newly commissioned Cherno Alpha, piloted by duo Sasha and Aleksis Kaidonovsky, would personally oversee the results of nearly twenty-eight exacting days of excruciating tests of the Bijuu Program. Today was _meant_ to be a controlled test for a full body transformation under controlled circumstances. Jumphawk helicopters hovered only a yards or so out, observing with their cameras. Mako was likely watching as well, glued to a televistion in the Shatterdome. This was the perfect chance to show the world that they could protect it.

The Kaiju saw fit to change that.

It was a massive category two. Codenamed Hammerhead, for the blunt intrument that made up its skull. More then two thousand pounds of nasty and over thirty-five feet of not good. One of the largest yet. It seemed to know exactly where they were; now it was making a beeline for them. Now it would be Shukaku's first forary against an enemy Kaiju.

_"Bogey incoming! On your six! Making landfall!"_

Naruto sighed into the headset, his breath fogging in the harsh winter air.

"Roger."

_"He's coming in fast!"_

His eyes tracking as the surf began to froth only a few miles from the shore. "I see 'em, Tendo...looks like we're done with this test. Cherno Alpha. Keep the big boy busy for a minute while Isaac and I put our dress blues on." He didn't wait for the Russian's response caustic response. Tugging off his headset and loosening his jacket, he felt his eyes flash red. Dread chakra coursed through him. Then his gaze shifted to the man standing at his elbow. His face still bore telltale signs of grease from the engine he'd been working on, his shaved head fresh with the scars from the last experiment.

"Ready, Mr. Clarke?" he asked of his fellow jinchuuriki.

The younger man offered a rueful growl of his own, shivering inside his coat. "Don't have much of a choice then, do I?"

"Not really, no."

"Balls."

He was the Biju Program's very first and stellar candidate. _Isaac Clarke._ An engineer. American. Someone who'd lost his girlfriend in Sydney, Nicole, to the Kaiju. Not much of a talker, but, not introverted like some. No combat experience to speak of either prior to his induction in the program.

That was nominal. It meant he wouldn't be likely be able to hurt anyone unless he went Biju. And so, for the first time in age, Naruto began the long, painful proccess of extracting the One-Tailed Racoon from the twine of his soul. The procedure had left him wracked with debilitating spasms for nearly a day. But they passed, and no one was the wiser. No one knew that there was no serum, that he was actually taking a massive beast of chakra and malice and shoving it into a human body. Now that he finally could, he was almost reluctant to do it. This wasn't a burden shouldered lightly. But Isaac insisted.

Mr. Clarke became Shukaku's host the very next day. Recovery time took three days.

Shukaku was by far the most troublesome of the biju, but as such he was also the weakest. His body made of sand gave him an advantage on dry land, making him nearly indestructible. Put him in the water and...well, they results weren't pretty. Regardless, his body was more than capable of resisting the Kaiju's toxic blood, and so long as the host retained control of his adled mind, he was quite sane. He was also the most unpredictable. Naruto had an understanding of a sort with the other seven; they knew if they crossed their master, he'd reach into their minds and break them like glass.

But Shukaku...who knew what was going through the madman's mind at this moment? When a Tailed Beast was extracted from him, he found he lost all control over it and its brain. He could only hope the tanuki knew better than to make a bid for independence now that its owner had finally let go of the leash.

Isaac had displayed most promising results after the transfer-reigning in the madness and psychoisis that came with being the host of the Ichibi. There had been no signs of instabillity beyond the inital discomfort of the merger and forging of chakra coils. He'd slept soundly, and woken feeling alive and refreshed. The only indication that Shukaku was within him at all were the tellltale raccoon-like rings around the eyes. He'd gained the control of sand as expected, something the engineer had marveled at. Now it was time to put it to the test.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Cherno Alpha level Hammerhead with an overhanded blow, sending the Kaiju sprawling into the surf. Faster than he could follow, the beast was back on its feet. A clawed arm of muscle and sinew lashed out, the heavy forearm swatting Alpha away as though it were a child's play thing. The Mark I staggered backwards aways, but much like the stubborn Russians who piloted her the warmachine refused to fall. Instead it rallied, steadying itself and shifting into an offensive stance.

Hammerhead shrieked a challenge and both bot and monster collided.

That was all he had time for before he felt the pins and needles coming on, pain consuming him as a new body began to fight its way free of his human form. He barely paid attention to the transformation anymore; his attention was instead fixed firmly on Isaac. Nothing could prepare you for that first change.

The man didn't so much _change_ as he did dissapear, vanishing in a typhoon of sand. By the time Naruto had finished, Shukaku was looking him dead in the eye. Nothing happened. The towering tanuki just stood there, its gold eyes regarding him intensely. There was a tense silence between the pair.

_"Isaac?"_ he shot a thought at him. _"You there?"_

A growl.

_"In...control..._

_Good. Now stay put._ he growled out a mental command. _Hold the line. If you get wet, you're useless. _Without so much as another word, he bounded forward and into the fray.

Kurama was something else in a fight.

Whatever he'd thought about Naruto and the last week of hell he'd put him through, Isaac had to admit that the fox was a beauty. It moved faster than a Jaeger, hit harder than a Kaiju, and made moves that even the most talented pilot couldn't have kept up with. Tailed Beasts were magnificent, and the Nine-Tailed Fox was in a class of its own. He wished he had a partner like that-and then as soon as he had that thought, he felt a strange guilt, as if he were being disloyal to Shukaku. Somewhere in the back of his brain, something twitched. Stirred.

He ignored it.

Kurama took on Hammerhead before it could deliver a crippling blow to Cherno Alpha, slamming into the Kaiju with a barrage of clawed swipes that staggered it and forced it away from the distressed Russians. Blows to the beast's head beat it down toward the water, and before it could recover, the fox caught it flush with its tails and flattened it against the seabed. Already the fox had dealth more than enough punishment to killl off most of the previous Kaiju they'd encountered. But not Hammerhead.

The shark-like alien gathered itself up and came right back at Naruto. They were close enough to the shore that Isaac could see the battle. Simultaenously, with his new height, he watched Sasha and Aleksis, wordless and in perfect Drift, storm back into the fight. Husband and wife each charging forward as Naruto and Hammerhead ripped into each other. Finallly, it seemed as though Hammerhead had enough. Sensing that Cherno Alpha was about to close in on it, the beast swung hard to the right with the larger hand, striking its foxy foe in the snout. _Hard._

Naruto was briefly knocked off balance by the Kaiju's brutal counterattack but he didn't go down. The ferocity of _his_ counterattack sent Hammerhead stumbling back toward shore. And in the next instant, Cherno Alpha was on them. The Jaeger threw a sweeping hook with both arms, a smshing pincer attack as the energies of the Sparkfist bloomed across the knuckles of each gauntlet. Hammerhead tried to turn and get out of its way-but succeeded only in presenting a wider profile for the attack.

Cherno's Sparkfist tore twin holes in either side of the beast's back. Blue blood spattered the waters.

From there, their battle dissolved into little more than a brawl.

Jaegar and Biju hammered away at the Kaiju together in surprisingly flawless tandem, blood spraying Hammerhead to crackle on Cherno Alpha's armor, boil on the sea and in Naruto's fur. But they didn't stop there. As one they relentlessly drove the hulking toward shore; and Isaac realized, toward him. He struggled to maintain his concentration, alll the while becoming more and more aware of the growing migraine in the back of his skull; as though something were physically pounding on it from the inside out. He knew that if they kept this up, the Kaiju would try to preserve itself, or at the very least, do some damage before it died-

Sure enough, Hammerhead broke and ran way towards the city, choosing to gallop away from the twin titans pounding on it in favor of the one guarding the cost. It bolted. Towards him. Isaac froze. He knew his orders were to remain stationary. But when he saw that beast...he saw Nicole. Her dead, mangled body, sprawled out over the wreckage that'd once been their apartment. Something snapped.

_Kill!_

Isaac roared in defiance. Then he _spat._

Hammerhead suddenly found itself engulfed in a web of wind and air. The air bullet burst from the Tanuki's mouth with all the force of a tactial nuke, its shockwave bodily picking it up and blasting its body back towards the water, hurling Naruto and Cherno Alpha away as well, hurling the pursuing pair into deeper waters. He didn't notice. Didn't _care._

Isaac-Shukaku-gave chase without hesitation, wading into the shallows after his prey. Those giant, clawed hands crushed down on Hammer with all the fury of a great and dark _tempest_ the beast's blood bursting up to lash at his visage as he struck and struck. He could crush this Kaiju. Annihilate him. His prey. Yes. His prey. He would crush him, kill him, _kill him_ **KILL HIM-**

_"Get out of the water now, you godamned idiot!"_

Isaac blinked, baffled as Naruto's mental shout pieced the red haze of bloodlust. Something was wrong. He couldn't move. His body, so large and bulky, suddenly felt stiff. Slow. But why? What was...oh no Too late, he saw what was wrong-realized that the biju was falling apart around him, its sandy body compromised by the deeper water and blood. He'd been told to stay out of the water. His strength -his power- was draining away before his very eyes, and while the chakra remained, it was nothing if not given form.

_Land._

He had to get to dry land. Now. Before his body fell apart completely.

Shukaku lurched backward, struggling to get away.

Hammerhead knew and recognized the weakness in an instant. It saw him. Knew exactly where he was within this rotting coffin of sand. Even as Shukaku turned it lunged forward, tackling him into the shallows. Naruto was shouting at him to fight, telling him just to hold on a little longer until they could get there. And Isaac was.

He was left fighting for his life...and losing.

It seemed Hammerhead was finishing the job that he had started-furiously ripping away pieces of Shukaku's wet, sandy body. Its claws punctured he head in which he resided in several places. Isaac could no longer lift his arms. He was crippled, and after a final blow from Hammerhead severed Shukaku's head he began to sink. It didn't give him the time to get away. A leathery hand reached down-closing around his small body. Then it squeezed, bringing him up to his mouth. Dangling by one leg, he could see Naruto closing. Only three yards away. He wasn't going to make it. Isaac closed his eyes, the fear falling away.

_Nicole..._

There was no pain when he died.

Just a faint discomforting sensation of falling, more discomfort as those teeth closed on him...

...and then Isaac Clarke was gone.

* * *

Naruto couldn't remember the last time he'd mourned.

It had been-what, ages?-forever since he had cared enough to be saddened by a comrades death. That was what Isaac had been. A comrade. A pupil. The man had his own share of problems, but he never told anyone about them. He was quiet. Kind. Reserved. Mako had spoken to him once. And now he was gone. They'd crushed Hammerhead and returned to the Shatterdome with only one casualty.

_Isaac Claarke._

He couldn't even revive him. Hammerhead had digested the jinchuuriki before they'd torn it to pieces. And even if that were an option, it would raise to many questions. Shukaku was sealed within him once more. That damned Kaiju had only gotten a taste of its power. But a taste was worrying enough. The damned things were learning. Adapting. If this continued who was to say that they wouldn't be losing Jaegers? He hated it. This awful crushing sensation in his chest, stiffling him from where he lay in his bed.

It would've been easy to return to his temporary quarters in the shatterdome and crash there rather than take a train home. Instead, he'd come here. He couldn't stand to be in the dome right now. The guilt, it nagged at him. Ate him up inside. Another death on his hands. _I feel old already, godamnit. How many more of these will I have to go through..._

They called him a hero. He didn't feel like one. He felt...

Sorrow.

Was that what this was?

"Naruto...?"

_**"?!"**_

Naruto started slightly at the voice, his head turning to regard little Mako Mori as she emerged from the door opposite him, her body clad in a pair of pink pajamas. Her tiny hands stuggling to shut the iron latch behind her. He rose slowly-quietly-and pushed it shut for her before it even occurred to ask why she was here. The hour was late. She should be asleep. Yet here she was anyway. Part of him wanted to usher her back out the door and return her to her bed across the hall. He stubbornly quashed it.

"Why are you here?" he yawned.

"I had another nightmare." she whispered.

"Ah." He didn't need to ask what it was about; he already knew.

With a soft sigh, he beckoned her to come all the way in. Mako wasted no time whatsoever-all but bolting across the room and clamoring into his bed before nestling herself under the sheets. Naruto laughed softly. This wasn't the first time she hadn't been able to sleep. She nestled into his chest, staring up at him with those wide, dark eyes.

"You're sad." it was not a question.

_"Hai."_

"Is it because your friend died?"

So she _had _been watching the televison, then.

Naruto considered that for a moment. Isaac was just another soul caught up in this war. He'd let his anger and pain and grief get the best of him, and because of that, he'd made a mistak. A fatal mistake. Still, Naruto felt he'd played a part in the man's death. He should've been more cautious. They should've done more tests. "He was a good man." he said at last. "He was willing to become a monster to protect the world he loved."

"Why do good men die?"

"Good men mean well, Mako." he sighed. "We just don't always end up _doing_ well."

She was silent for a bit after that. Nearly a full minute of peace and quiet. Naruto thought she'd fallen aslep. So he was completely unprepared when her sleepy little voice piped up once more.

"When can I do that?"

"Hmm?" his eyes drifted open.

"Fight the monsters."

Naruto groaned. This again.

"Why are you so bent on this?"

She muttered something beneath her breath.

"Nani?" he muttered in Japanese. "What?"

_"Kamei no tame ni. For my family's honor."_

He felt the beginnings of a frown dawn on his face. "You'd honor them with your death?"

Her face colored and she squirmed her head deeper into his chest.

"That's different."

_"Chigau no?"_ Naruto snapped back in their native language. "_Yoi ka warui kai? Different how? Better or worse?"_

Nobody did embarassment like the Japanese. Mako blushed right to her hairline and bowed her head several times.

...gomen." she relented.

"Someday." he promised her. "Someday you'll be able to do what I do."

"M'kay...

Her breathing evened out slowly, her eyes drooping in sleep. The jinchuuriki sighed and held her tight.

"Someday, Mako." he murmurred. "Someday."

Time marched on.

* * *

_(Roughly a week later...)_

Naruto frowned down at his protege. His new recruit.

He circled her, much like a shark would its prey. Quiet. Cautious. Appraising her. If she noticed his attention she gave no indication of it; her eyes remained fixed straight ahead-her concsiousnss latched not onto him or herself, but the target erected only a few feet away; a solid block off concrete painted with a bulls eye. She was the youngest of his recruits, painfully thin beneath the black, skin-tight bodysuit she wore. Anything lesss and the chakra might not flow properly in a new jinchuuriki about to make their first transformation.

She was only seventeen years old.

"Are you ready, Jodie?" he asked.

She nodded once, the motion sending her brown tresses bobbing to and fro. Naruto continued to circle her in slow stride, his crisp footfalls echoing sharply with each step. He was painfully aware that they weren't alone in this space; that several members of both the Jeager teams, as well as his own were watching this moment. They were wary of another failure.

"Its not too late to back out," he warned, his words echoing in the empty halls of the shatterdome. "No one's making you do this."

"I want to do this...sir." she added, almost as an afterthought.

"Very well." he'd given her the chance. Now it was time to see what she could do. "I want you to access one tail of chakra."

She nodded, her eyes branching with strain. "Like...this?"

Blue fire engulfed her body, tendrils of otherwordly energy working in tandem to form the cloak. And remarkably, it held.

"Now," his gaze turned toward the target. "Go."

She twisted and the block of concrete shattered into a fine powder. Applause rose from the bridges. Naruto permitted himself a small smile.

She was a survivor, this one. Tough as nails, with something to prove. A young girl, from San Francisco. Jodie Holmes was her name, as he recalled. The second candidate of their Biju Program. She would be serving as the host of the Niibi. The Two-Tailed cat. Matatabi. In the end, the PPDC had chosen to back both the Biju and the Jeager plans, leading to the increased production of monstrous robots as a whole, and the first of many promising students for him. Backed by a colossal amount of support for his own plan, he was certain it wouldn't fail...

...though he wasn't certain about subjecting Mako Mori to this. She wanted to fight. She was just a child and she wanted to _destroy_ the ones who'd hurt her so.

The girl had a _lot_ of anger in her thanks to the loss of her family; and hate, was the last thing you wanted to bring when merging with a Biju. But Jodie, seemed different. Eager. Hopeful. She hadn't lost anyone to the Kaiju. And her unique...gift, allowed her to merge with a tailed beast despite lacking chakra coils. That was the stickler right there. He couldn't create chakra in a body that didn't have it. The biju, when bonding with a host be they young or old, had to carve them from scratch.

The procedure was painful, to say the last.

But Jodie was alive. Only a day after being bonded to Matabi she was up and about, walking again. Damned if she wasn't determined. Her body trembling with the strain, she managed to hold the chakra at bay, bend it to her will.

"Good, good." he soothed her, his hand daring to brush her shoulder. "Just stay calm. I know its a bit much to take in. Don't chase the rabbit. Its a lot like piloting a Jeager...minus the electronics and that neural handshake gobbledy gook. She's trying to work with you, but the chakra itself has a mind of its own. You need to reign in your emotions, maintain control. Think positive thoughts. If you don't, it will most likely-

He ducked as a tail swept over his head, shattering a walkway. He sighed, pinching the brow of his nose.

"That!" he called as Jodie's left foot swung downward from the sky, dragging a trail of blue fire with her to the ground.

"Sorry!" she cried!

Naruto sighed.

This was going to take a fair bit of work...

* * *

**A/N: There we go! My first official NarutoxPacific Rim Crossover! Not sure if Naruto is going to get his own jeager or not. I'll leave that to ya'll. Pairing is NarutoxMako, folks! Hope ya'll enjoy all of the insane monster fighting action that is to come! Also, a fair bit of humor, as you'll see. It explores what happened before the movie and of course, during it. And trust me folks, this won't be alll sunshine and roses. We're gonna see some death here, and a few familiar faces from other genres, as you'll see...and we get to see Raleigh next chapter! I wonder whether or not his brother will die...guess that's up to you, folks!**

**So...in the Immortal Words of Atlas...**

**...Review, Would You Kindly? And of course...enjoy the Preview! Surprise! Phew, I'm gonna take a nap now, all this writing is wearing me out...**

**(Preview)**

_'You're running out of time, Naruto.'_

_The last shinobi paused, his arms still fully extended from the pushup. 'You're running out of time.' The voice came on yet again, it seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once. Pain flared in his skull. Something wet dashed against the bare skin of his neck. Even then, he thought it was just sweat from the workout. He only had three of the nine biju locked within him, and it was important to keep himself in shape. Top form. He had to be. He didn't want to think that anything was wrong. He couldn't accept that. Not after all these years. He wouldn't._

_"Naruto-kun?!" _

_-until Mako yelped. When had she gotten there? Had he blacked out?_

_He suddenly realized he was on the floor, that his arms had given out. His face was pressed into the mat. He couldn't move. That'd never happened before. Soft hands rolled him over to his back. And then, just like that-he had free reign of his body again. He found himself staring up at his star student, Mako, the young woman's eyes wide with fear._

_"I'm fine," he soothed her. "Fine."_

_She gasped softly._

_"You're bleeding..._

_Naruto blinked and touched a hand to his face, frowning down at the blood pooling from his nose. In all his lives and rebirths, he'd never suffered through something like this._

_"Well," he murmurred..._

_...that's not good."_

**R&amp;R =D**


	4. Go Big Or Go Extinct

**A/N: Still I return again! Pretty quick update, eh?! Things have been absolutely crazy for me as of the last few months what with the surgeries and all, but now at long last, I feel I can devote my attentions to this fic anew as I've intended to do! Of course, now that they're not cutting me OPEN anymore to work on my heart I've also come up with a quite a few new ideas! I can promise ya'll that the next few chappys are going to be nothing short of absolutely brilliant! So sorry for the wait! **

**Now...**

**...behold the fruits of my labor!**

_"I just watched a good friend die out there, today. And you want to blame the Kaiju on **me?** See if we save you the next time one comes knocking."_

_~Uzumaki Naruto (In regards to a recent influx of anti-Biju sentiment)_

**Go Big Or Go Extinct**

Naruto and pain were old friends. Best buddies, really.

A thousand times he had felt its searing kiss blossom across his body. In hundreds of ways. Dozens of angles. Countless. Be it death or the spasms, or even something benign like cutting himself while shaving, he knew it well and it knew him. He'd long since learned to block it out; to ignore his nerves when they screamed at him, begged him to stop stop, stop oh dear sweet kami above make it _stop._ It was a simple matter of focusing his attention elsewhere. Looking outward, instead of inward.

Ignore. Suppress. Triage. Move on. Anything else...

...problematic.

He could bypass all but the most debilitating injuries this way, thus allowing him to fight on while his body frantically worked to stitch himself back together. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. Sometimes he left his body because of it, and was forced to reincarnate again. And again. And again. Maybe that was why Kurama finally stopped talking to him like the rest; because he abused the _hell _out of his immortality; because the fact was, he didn't _care _what happened to his body. If one broke, he'd just wake up in another. That had been his philosophy for the longest time since learning he couldn't be killed.

Besides, after all these years, was there really anything left to say between them? The world was ending. Just like it always was. Just like it had been since he'd taken _Trespasser_ in San Francisco. The intervals between attacks were steadily decreasing. Used to be they'd have months, or at least weeks to recuperate. Couple of years ago, it'd been easier. A lot easier.

Not anymore.

With the attacks spiking, more and more Jaegers were being ramped out. Stamped out. Now the Mark III's were the talk of the world. Jaegars like Gypsy Danger. Raleigh and Yancy Beckett weren't viable candidates to become host for even the weakest of his biju-you need to be made of sterner stuff than that-but they _did _know how to handle themselves in a fight. Good pilots. Brash, though. Unconventional. He liked them. Sadly the same couldn't be said for their superiors. In their eyes, the Jaegar's pilots were reckless and arroagant.

Speaking of pilots...

"Hey, doc, you alright?" a rough voice asked, jarring him out of his reverie. "You're starting to cook a little."

"No thanks to you, jarhead." Naruto snapped, his gaze cutting from the chart in his hand to the prone figure sitting seiza style before him. Another host. Hopefully a success story like Jodie. With the months had come experience and over time, to his great delight, she'd learned to reign in the Niibi's awe-inspiring powers. Master them. But one success wasn't enough.

Damnitall, he needed this to work. Like Shukaku, Matabi was a creature of the elements, a being of fire. Not much use when Kaiju were spawning from the water now, was she? She was assigned to coastal patrol, and knew better than to enter into the waters. But Biju were volatile things. Dangerous things. They couldn't always be trusted.

The searing burns on his arms and face currently attested to that. This man had just _burned_ him. With a sigh, he blinked and _pushed _the flames away.

The potential host in question went by the name of John Shepard. Military man. Soldier. Like Pentecost. American. Family man. Not like Pentecost. He was stubborn and bullheaded at the best of times, but beneath the bluster and the bravado and the speeches, he wanted to save his planet, just like everyone else. As he recallled, Commander Shepard was betrothed to a miss Ashley Willliams; a gunnery chief whom Naruto had never known and would likely never meet. They even had a daughter. Didn't matter. Shepard had volunteered for this program just like the others.

He knew the risks.

He was the host of the _Yonbi,_ Son Goku. And he had almost no control over the damned monkey! Just the thought was enough to send him into an apocalyptic fury. It wasn't as though he could just extract the Tailed Beast from him without consequence and start over; if he tried to do so, Shepard would almost certainly die. Painfully. Something he wished to avoid. The world still believed his lie that the biju-the beasts-were of his creation. When Jodie had taken down Yamarashi singlehandedly, she'd proven the worth of his project. It was up to him to continue to prove that worth.

Something he wasn't going to accomplish if he kept getting spattered in acidic chakra. Fixing the Commander with a stern glare, he ordered him to form a second tail of chakra. Then he kicked him in the gut with all the force of a hellfire missile. Shepard doubled over with a gravelly groan, his dark eyes flashing in anger.

"Ow! What the fuck was that for, doc?!"

Naruto's boot shot out again, unerringly planting itself in the man's stomach for a second time.

"You cannot fathom the immensity of the fuck I do not give, Commander." He said, in a voice that could have frozen hydrogen. "You are cocky and arrogant and you _assume _that this will work because you wish it to. It will not. That chakra will tear you up and spit you back out if you let it. Now, get your ass in gear and lock it down! NOW!"

Grumbling quietly to himself about the man's maniacal methodry, Shepard picked himself up for what felt like the umpeenth time and settled into a stance once more. Slowly, he tried to draw the chakra out. As ever it wrestled with him like a thing alive-probably because it was. But of course he didn't know that. None of them did. It they had any idea what was being shoved into their stomachs, that to fail this task was to die, they'd probably refuse it outright. Ignorance truly was bliss. But now was the time to focus.

His eyes slid shut.

_"Control is an illusion."_ Naruto's voice seemed to echo from somewhere outside himself, existing beyond space and time. _"The more you tighten your grip-the harder the chakra will fight. You have to guide it. But at the same time, you can't guide it down the wrong path. You must be firm, yet gentle. Stern, but-THERE WE GO!"_

Shepard, eyes flew open with a start, alarmed to find not one, not two, but three tails of individual chakra swirling around him peacefully. A bonified-jinchuuriki cloak. Naruto was beaming. Any and all irritation that had previously been made manifest in him was all but gone in the wake of this improvement.

"Perfect." he checked his datapad, pleased with the readings. "You've made your quota for today. Hit the sack."

"Finally." the marine rumbled as he dropped the shroud, picking himself up. This close Naruto could _smell _the sweat on him. His nose curled.

"Ah, Shep?"

"Yeah?"

"Might want to hit the showers first." he made a subtle shooing motion.

"I'm going, I'm going...

Sadly, no sooner had departed, than the erstwhile blond found himself face to face with another problem.

"You there! Fox!"

Naruto sighed and poked out of a tangle of wires as a thick, accented voice demanded his attention.

"I'm very busy-oh, Sasha."

He'd gotten along famously with the Russians since that first fight with Hammerhead; Aleksis and Sasha were probably the only un-altered humans in the world who could drink him under the table now. They were also the only ones who held his respect-other than Pentecost. That, and they were fun to prank. They gave as good as they god. Unlike a certain and recently promoted Marshal. The one -and only!- time he'd gotten Stacker with a water balloon, the man had actually pulled a gun on him. Granted, no shots were fired, but he'd learned a valuable lesson that day nonetheless.

Stacker Pentecost did _not_ like pranks. Hopefully, this wasn't another attempt on Sasha's part.

But for now, the woman merely jerked a thumb over her shoulder.

"The little one is here."

Naruto frowned, suddenly catching sight of a little bob of black hair with dark eyes trailing just behind Aleksis. Mako. If she was here, then...crap. He facepalmed.

"I'm late, aren't I?"

She nodded.

Sasha snickered. "It seems our work is done here. Come, Aleksis!"

The swarthy russian rumbled a laugh and followed his wife, leaving the blond to his fate. And just like that they were alone.

"Mako..."

"You promised." she looked on the verge of tears. "You sa

"Right, right, I'm sorry." He cringed under her intense stare. "Erm...could you remind me? What did I forget, again?"

"My. Birthday."

_Guh._

His relationship with Mako was...odd, to say the least. He didn't exactly see her as a daughter, and she _certainly _didn't treat him like he was her father. It was more of a pseudo brother-sister thing they had going on, but when you were eternally trapped in your twenties, time got funny. Mako was n't quite so little anymore, either. She was already well into her teenage years now and proving herself rebellious at nearly every turn had been bad enough...but this? It was getting out of hand! Was that why she'd dyed the trips of her hair blue? Just to be rebellious? And what was with the chic goth outfit?

He'd asked her_ -even used Would You Kindly-_ to say back at the house until he came home from work. Apparently, he'd lost track of the time. And the date. And the present! Kami, he couldn't even try to remember if she was fifteen or sixteen now! Crap!

"Look, look, I'm sorry." he apologized, reaching down to ruffle her dark tresses with a hand. "How can I make it up to you?"

Her eyes brightened.

"I want...

"No, you can't be a jinchuuriki yet. Too young."

Her smile soured, her eyes sweeping across the Shatterdome and alighting upon a nearby Jaegar. "Then-

Naruto was swift to counter this as well. "No piloting till you're twenty!"

"But I have my liscense!"

"A driver's liscence. For a _car._ Not a Jaeger."

Those beautiful eyes darkened, her face scrunching up in thought.

"Then... I want to see a Biju."

"Okay, that's doable-

"And ride it."

Naruto sputtered.

"Ride? Sweetie, you can't just ride one of these things like some kidn of anima-

_Thud._

Naruto turned, suddenly aware of a shadow falling over them in the shatterdome. Who the hell turned out the lights?

"What is it now-SWEET BLOODY MARY?!"

Jack Ryan towered over them in full biju form. Isobu. The three-tailed turtle, in all its red and grey glory.

"Jack, what the hell? _When_ the hell?" he was surprised, but it was a good kind of surprise. The kind you got when you walked out the front door to find a new porsche sitting in your driveway. From his vantage point, he was almost certain that the turtle's lone eye creased in a smile. There was a silence. Even the normally verbiose Mako was stricken silent by the sight of the towering titan. The irony of it all, was that Jack himself was a mute, unable to speak through anything more than sign language, or the occassional expression. In terms of tempermant, the man wouldn't hurt a fly...unless it happened to be a kaiju

Naruto barked out a laugh.

"This just might work after all...

Mako managed a meek nod.

Best. Birtday. Ever.

* * *

Five years passed.

The death of Isaac Claarke was memorialized as the Biju Program's first failure. What some said would be the first of many. Then came Jodie Holmes. Jack Ryan. John Shepard. Samus Aran. James Vega. One after the other he siphoned the biju out of himself and watched his pupils thrive. Five consecutive success stories each going off without a hitch. A torch held high for humanity. It was more than the occassional victory here and there-they began to outmatch anything and everything the Breach threw at them.

They started winning.

Biju and Jaegar began taking out Kaiju everywhere. Romeo Blue and John Shepard taking down a massive Category Three. Jack Ryan and Cherno Alpha. Crimson Typhoon and Samus Aran. Jaeger pilots and those who trained themselves to become monsters were suddenly overnight celebrities. Rock stars. The threat of a Kaiju attack suddenly didn't seem so big anymore. Five years of victory had passed with losses neglibible in their eyes, the public's eye. But all too noticeable by those who worked tirelessly to protect it. And then it all changed.

Everything changed.

* * *

The year was 2020.

They were now seven years into the Kaiju war. The Kaiju were getting bigger. Faster. Stronger. Category's One through Two were a thing of the past now. Now they dealt with massive Category Threes'. Massive, with a ton of powere behind them, they were nowhere near as flimsy as their other brothers and sisters. And they were starting to destroy Jaegars. _Madre de dios,_ the slimy bastards were _learning._ Adapting. Evolving. With an enemy that could predict your moves almost before they were made, these Kaiju were proving damn near impossible to take down.

Lieutenant James Vega was learning that, the hard way. He'd been entrusted with Gyuuki, the Eight-Tails sent to guard the miracle mile of Anchorage, Alaska. Gypsy Danger was being sent in as backup-a standard two man operation that had evolved over the course of the war. So long as the Kaiju kept coming one by one, they could stave them off.

"Up and at 'em Vega!" he told himself, scanning the sea for any sign of movement. Nothing came. Man, just once he wished the damn thing wouldn't surprise him-

It didn't.

"Dios." he whispered, the spanished word rolling off his lips as he saw just how big it truly was.

Knifehead rose from the ocean off the port side, standing a hundred feet and ore out of the water. Four arms ended in webbed claws, each big enough to crush a Jaegar's arm like a beer can. Its head was a blade, with one edge narrowing from its upper jaw to a point and the other defining the top of its skull. Active sonar outlined the rest of its body under the water, revealing it to be a biped with a powerful tail. Like a dinosaur kinda-only a magnitude larger than any dinosaur that had ever lived.

It was big, the techs had been right about that. Its open mouth would've fit the Saltchuck comfortably, and each of its teeth was as tall as person. A large person. The wave of its emergance crested over Vega, causing him to sway slightly in the shallows. As a whole, it was bigger than him-even in bijuu form. And he had to face this thing by _himself? _Where the hell as Gypsy-ah.

There she was.

Silhouetted through the storm as little more than a hulking shape in the rain, the Mark III surged forward through the water, covering the remaining distances to the Saltchuck. A hapless fishing boat in the wrong place at the wrong time, it was about to be caught up in their battle. The Jaegar had stayed low, swimming as neccessary across the deeper waters of the Gulf of Alaska. Now with solid footing available in shallow water, the brothers two planted the Jaegar's feet and stood up, exploding through the surface of the ocean in a two-hundred foot geyser lit by spotlights and booming with rescue horns.

Vega loved those fucking horns. Damn things just sounded badass. He could respect that, watch, as Gypsy scooped the boat up in the palm of one hand and pulled back.

Knifehead didn't like that.

As one the brothers ducked and Gypsy Danger did the same, avoiding a decapitating swipe from Knifehead's triple claws. The beast bleated its fury at a near miss. Gypsy stepped back from another swift swipe, Plasma Cannon charged and at the ready, the boat held out and behind it. And then it fired. The first shot hit square in Knifehead's midsection, right about where a human's solar plexus would be. The kaiju staggered and their second shot knocked it further backward, twin charred craters smoking in its torso. Its arms flailed and it screamed.

James saw the opening. He took it.

_"I got this!"_

Now it was Jame's turn to surge forward, slamming into Knifehead, tackling the larger beast into deeper water. It was here that he had the advantage. Tencacles wrapped around Knifehead's torso, securring him to the writhing abomination like a giant Octopus. With fists. The Eight Tails was one of the two Biju who seemed to be built for aquatic combast besides; his lower eight legs wrapping around the Kaiju while he pummeled at it with his huge, hulking fists, relentlessly beating its head down into the water. _Hulk! Smash!_ James laughed at the thought. _Shit, this is just too easy-_

Then something grabbed him.

Vega didn't understand what was happening; the only entitty large enough to physically pull him off Knifehead was Gypsy, and she was holding her position. So what the hell was this?! His body crashed down into the water, all the world spinning around him. Shaking the dripping deulge from his horned head, he spun around, just in time for something to pounce on him. Two huge shapes lurked in the darkness, illuminated now by a flash of lightning. His heart skipped a beat.

He was looking at another Knifehead.

_Two?!_ his mind worked frantically as he fought, his brain refusing to understand-comprehend why there was suddenly a _second _Knifehead in the water with him. _Why the hell were there two?!_ Flailing, he caught sight of Gypsy Danger, speared through the chest by the first Kaiju. Impaled. But it still had both its arms, each limb working furiously to pound at the creature trying to nail it down to the rocky cliffs. The beast opened its maw and snarled, exposing what looked suscipicously like tailed beast ball, shining within its maw.

_Oh, Dios...how is it doing that?_

By some miracle Gypsy got a knee up in time. Instead of blowing off an arm, the kaiju's blast shot harmlessly into the sea. Its plasma cannon howled, blowing another searing fissure into the beast. It kept coming, that blade wedge of a head trying to gouge them once more, its claws scrabbbling at the Jaegar's head. James tried to help, wrench himself free from his own opponent, but the second kaiju thrust him down deeper into the waters, clawing at him relentlessly. It was bigger than him. Faster.

Stronger.

Knifehead reared up, and he fought himself staring at the point of its bladed head. Then it drove into his heart. James roared in pain, eyes flashing. No. Hell no! If he was going down, then he was taking this bastard to hell with him! Jaws clicked open, a bijudama warmed and heated between his teeth. He had time for one last thought, and it was of the man who'd given him this great gift. He felt sympathy for him. Naruto. _Loco._ The guy was as mad as a hatter, but underneath that all, he knew the man was struggling to keep them all afloat.

But now James was sinking. Leaving him behind. With this, at least he could give him a good sendoff. He couldn't see what was happening to Gypsy now-all he knew was the blazing ball in front of his face. With the last of his strenth, he wrapped himself around Knifehead, ensuring it wouldn't escape.

_Sorry, Loco..._

And then the bijudama burned the world white.

* * *

_"Namikaze-san! What do you have to say about the recent influx of Kaiju?" A reporter thrust a mike in his face._

_"The situation is under control."_

_"I'm Khalisah from Westerlund News! Is it true that you created these beasts?" another, a young woman in a scando lously ugly dress ademanded, wielding her microphone as though it were some sort of sword.._

_Outrage marred his face._

_"Khalisah, was it? I just watched a good friend die out there today." Uzumaki Naruto stared at the screen, watching himself as he sneered at a reporter; looked at her as though she had crawled out of a sewer. "He was a godamned hero, someone who fought to keep people like you safe. You dishonor his memory with your _slander_ and I've had just about enough of your damn disingenious assertations." His fist cracked out mercilessly, clenched knuckles burying themselves into her visage with a sickening crunch. _

_She toppled like a house of cards, unable to form anything more than an incoherent gasp as she fell._

_The shinobi scowled down at her still-twitching form. Then his gaze snapped back to the camera. "You want to blame the Kaiju on me? Go right ahead. See if we come save you the next time they hit." His words caused the crowd to erupt into shouts of dismay. Naruto ignored them._

_"No further questions."_

The last Uzumaki lowered his visage, shaking his head slowly as the footage shifted from his assault, to a story on the Wall of Life. Yeah, that was bad. Just as Pentecost claimed. John and the others had tried their best to calm him down once he'd learned of James death-he'd told them all to bugger off and locked himself in the gym. He wanted to be alone.

"Off." he barked now to the television, disgusted with himself. The command shut it down.

Disaster. The sole concilation was that they hadn't managed to take Gyuuki. He could feel the Eight Tails inside him again. But Shukaku? Shukaku was gone. The second host had failed spectacularly in his first fight and by some means, the Kaiju had done more than just devour the man-it had taken his tailed beast as well. Was that how they were learning? He shuddered at the possiblity. It was either go big or go extinct, and thus far the Kaiju seemed to be getting very good at making them the latter. Still, he tried to ignore that very real possibility.

To fight the agony still flaring in his stomach.

He tried to blot out the pain, but it was still there. He felt besiged on all sides. One failure. One catastrophic failure, and the public turned on the program. Two Kaiju. Two Kaiju had come through the breach, and by the log, he didn't know how they hadn't seen that second one until twas too late. It was a victory, but at a high cost. James was gone. Raleigh and Yancy had barely survived the conflict. He'd seen the reports. It didn't look like the younger brother was going to last the night. Gypsy was scrap. And somehow, the kaiju were learning how to emulate tailed beasts. This was starting to become one big clusterfuck.

_'You're running out of time, Naruto.'_

The last shinobi paused, his arms still fully extended from the pushup._ 'You're running out of time.'_ The voice came on yet again, it seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once. Pain flared in his skull. Something wet dashed against the bare skin of his neck. Even then, he thought it was just sweat from the workout. He only had three of the nine biju locked within him, and it was important to keep himself in shape. Top form. He had to be. He didn't want to think that anything was wrong. He couldn't accept that. Not after all these years. He wouldn't.

"Naruto-kun?!"

-until Mako yelped. When had she gotten there? How had she gotten in? Had he blacked out, somehow?

He suddenly realized he was on the floor, that his arms had given out. His face was pressed into the mat. He couldn't move. That'd never happened before. Soft hands rolled him over to his back. And then, just like that-he had free reign of his body again. He found himself staring up at his star student, Mako, the young woman's eyes wide with fear.

"I'm fine," he soothed her. "Fine."

She gasped softly.

"You're bleeding...

Naruto blinked and touched a hand to his face, frowning down at the blood pooling from his nose. In all his lives and rebirths, he'd never suffered through something like this.

"Well," he murmured...

...that's not good."

* * *

**A/N: There we go! My first official NarutoxPacific Rim Crossover! Not sure if Naruto is going to get his own jeager or not. I'll leave that to ya'll. Pairing is NarutoxMako, folks! Hope ya'll enjoy all of the insane monster fighting action that is to come! Also, a fair bit of humor, as you'll see. It explores what happened before the movie and of course, during it. And trust me folks, this won't be alll sunshine and roses. We're gonna see some death here, and a few familiar faces from other genres, as you'll see...and we get to see Raleigh next chapter! I wonder whether or not his brother will die...guess that's up to you, folks!**

**So...in the Immortal Words of Atlas...**

**...Review, Would You Kindly?! Phew, I'm gonna take a nap now, all this writing is wearing me out...**

**R&amp;R =D**


	5. Why Do We Fall?

**A/N: Still I return again! Pretty quick update, eh?! Things have been absolutely crazy for me as of the last few months what with the surgeries and all, but now at long last, I feel I can devote my attentions to this fic anew as I've intended to do! Of course, now that they're not cutting me OPEN anymore to work on my heart I've also come up with a quite a few new ideas! I can promise ya'll that the next few chappys are going to be nothing short of absolutely brilliant! So sorry for the wait! Another cannon shift here, YANCY survived and Rayleigh died, I'm sad to say...**

**Now...**

**...behold the fruits of my labor! This chapter proves, that, without a doubt, Naruto is still human. Like us, he has his own doubts, his fears...his regrets...**

_"Guns, girls, and a whole lot of destruction. What more could a man ask for?"_

_~Uzumaki Naruto!_

**Why Do We Fall?**

"So, let me get this straight." Pentecost began, pinching the brow of his nose in a vain attempt to ward off an oncoming migraine, "You think you're dying." His words were directed to the young man sprawled out on the couch before him, to an old friend, a good man who by all rights was probably one of the few things standing between the world and certain annihilation. And now that man was throwing in the towel-giving up-admitting that he didn't have what it took.

"Pretty much." Naruto admitted, staring at the ceiling, uncaring for the storm raging just outside the windo. "I done goofed."

"I can see that," Stacker sighed, and thunder seemed to reverberate with his words. "What did you do?"

What had he done indeed?

Naruto was finally beginning to realize his mistake.

That which had kept him immortal, ever-living over all these years, the source of his constant reincarnation, was none other than the Ten-Tails itself. Though he had split back into its nine halves it was still a part of his very genetic makeup, the reason for his continued existence. And in taking those pieces away, he'd weakened himself. Slowly, gradually at first, but with each successive separation, his body had been breaking down-a slow, cellular deconstruction-as seen through the eyes of the microscope.

Now it was scattered, and with it, his life force.

In short, time was catching up to him.

He could of course, rip out the pieces from Jodie and the others but-no, doing that was unacceptable.

There was only one alternative if he wanted to live.

"Everything." was all the blond said. "I've had enough."

"That's it?"

He nodded, looking through hooded eyes. "That's it."

"You're just throwing in the towel?"

"I've been throwing in the towel for a long, long time. Its secondhand for me by now. You know, I really thought this time would be different. " Placing both arms behind his head, he dared a sigh. "I thought to myself, ya know, I can do this. I can make things right, just this once. Ha! Shows what I know; its just the definition of insanity."

"It _is_ different."

"More will come. How many until we have to deal with three at a time? Then four? Five? They're not going to stop."

"Then we take the fight to them and end it there!"

"Big words." A lone eye rolled to meet his. "I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Pentecost." He stood slowly, woodenly, without a care, meeting his old friend eye to eye. "I have stood for this world time and time again throughout the years. Each time," his hand waved, drawing shapes in the air, "I have been revered, worshiped, sometimes even outright deified, by those I chose to protect...until something went wrong. Then, they don't hesitate to blame you At the first chance, they'll throw you in the gutter."

Pentecost almost couldn't believe what he was hearing; that aside, the man's logic confounded him. _"That's _your reason?"

"Do I need a better one?"

Lightning rocked the sky; in that same moment, Stacker struck.

_Thud._

Punching the blond was like ramming a brick wall head on. It hurt like hell. He felt his knuckles crack, bone splintering as his clenched fist made contact with the blond's nose. But it was worth it to smack that blank look off his face-to see a small flicker of sense sputter in those glassy blue orbs. Stumbling backwards, the whiskered warrior looked at him as though he'd grown an extra head, shock and disbelief flickering over his marked visage in varying degrees of pained surprise and hurt.

"Ow." the blond grunted, touching a hand to his bloodied orifice, frowning when his fingers came away bloody. "What was that for?"

"To knock some sense into you!" Despite the throbbing agony in his arm, Pentecost dared to step forward and give his old friend a hard shove. "Wake up! You can't just walk away from this!"

"Since when did you care this much?!"

"Apparently, when you stopped!"

"And you think you can make me care again?!" Naruto exclaimed. "Make me lose more of my friends for your doomed cause?! Hell no! Fuck you!"

Stacker whalloped him again.

This time, Naruto hit back.

If hitting Naruto was the epitome of smashing your fist into a stoic brick wall, _taking _a hit from the jinchuuriki was like being run over by a jeager. The sheer force of the blow picked him up and flipped his body over the very desk which he'd been standing near. His head struck the wall with a dull crack, creating countless supernova in his mind.

Time itself seemed to stand still.

"WELL MAYBE I'M SICK AND FUCKING TIRED OF BEING THE FALL GUY!" Then Naruto jerked forward and snatched him up off the ground, snarling. Strong arms seized Pentecost by the collar, hauling the smaller man forward and shaking him like a rag doll. "DID YOU EVER CONSIDER THAT! Yancy's missing a brother, _I'm_ down another friend and the world doesn't give a damn rat's ass about either of 'em! All they care about is the fact that_** I! FUCKED! UP!"**_

A moment of strained silence passed between the two men, broken only by the heavy sound of Naruto's breathing.

With a grunt, he released his old friend, dropping him to the ground, and stood.

"Like I said," he breathed, lowering his voice, "I've had enough. Your pilots want to fight and keep the world safe? Fine. Let them throw their lives away. Me? I...am done." a hand waved angrily as he stormed out of the room, smacking a lamp off the desk, shattering it to a dozen pieces of glass and plastic as he storme. "I'm taking my people and leaving."

"That's how it starts, you know."

An eye twitched. "How what starts?"

"The fever." Stacker said. "The rage. The feeling of powerlessness that turns good men cruel."

"And how am I cruel?" Naruto frowned, turning. "The way I see it, I'm the opposite. "I've given this world good long years through my sacrifice."

"Yes, you did." The marshal nodded, his eyes stern, voice grave. "You did what we couldn't. You gave these people hope." Groaning at the agony in his ribs, he climbed up again, using his battered desk to pick himself back to his feet. "A symbol. Something to believe in. Now you want to walk away, just because you've taken some hits? Toss them in the gutter and leave them burn? Doesn't get much crueler than that."

"You idiot...

Despair gripped Naruto's heart in a fearsome vice.

He didn't understand.

No one did.

Throwing your life away, knowing you'd be reborn was one thing. Years of existing had left him doubtful. Cynical. Living had become a crutch for him; he'd grown used to the notion that no matter what fate threw at his body, his soul would ultimately survive and reincarnate in another body some distance away. To have that taken from him, to be presented with the very real possibility of utter annihilation from an enemy as implacable as they were wholly relentless...

He wasn't sure there was an afterlife, let alone that someone like him actually deserved it. It was either death for him now, or death later.

And he was bloody terrified of it.

...I'm fucking dying!"

_"Then get better."_

"I! CAN'T!"

Howling, he slammed the door behind him!

* * *

_"Sensei?"_

After what felt like a small eternity later Naruto reluctantly stirred within the darkness of his room, opening his now-golden eyes from his latest meditation. Sage mode. Natural energy flowed through him like a babbling brook, mending his failing systems and repairing the minor injuries Pentecost had inflicted upon him. His breathing steadied, and his heart rate slowed. He could function again without bleeding chakra like a sieve, if just for a few days. Perhaps, if he could maintain this-

_Gack!_

As if to disabuse him of that very notion, another shudder took him and caused his body to convulse violently. By the time he regained control he was covered in cold sweat and Mako was already there, murmurring soft words of encouragement to him. In that moment, he felt absolutely recchid. He couldn't stand for anyone to see him like this, least of all her. And yet, here she was. Her eyes seemed to glow softly in the dim lighting as though lit from within by a great flame, gentle and soft like the fabric of her thick blue coat.

It felt moist, damp, somehow. Had she been outside during this storm?

"How did you know I was here?" he groaned.

"Samus."

Naruto scowled.

"Eavesdropping little-

"You don't mean that."

No, she was right. That was the anger talking.

"Go away, Mako." Rolling over, he willed himself to look away from her. "I'm not in the mood." _I don't want to be seen like this, _was the unspoken message. One she readily ignored. Distantly, he heard the light weight of her body settle down on the bed beside him. Her hand dared to stroke his forehead, still cloying with sweat, turning his face into her cheek, humming softly. A wet rag administered itself to his feverish face moments later, benign and cool to his burning visage.

"You asked me something once, when I was younger," she began, hesitantly, stroking his cheek. "You said, why do we fall?"

...so we can get back up again."

"Sometimes even the best of us fall."

"Well, do the best of us die?" he snarked angrily.

Mako was silent for a very long time, after that.

Then, just when it seemed that she might say something-

_"Attention all hands,"_ a voice rang over the speaker, _"We have movement in the Breach. I repeat, we have movement in the breach."_

Casting him one last significant look, she left him with the rag on his head.

"For what its worth...I still believe in you, sensei."

...nice to know that someone does."

Naruto lay in darkness for a long, long time. He was weak, and growing weaker by the day. Short of resorting to outright yanking the biju from his students, there was no forseeable way to recover. Sage Mode was just a way to hold the floodwaters at bay. And when that dam broke...he wasn't sure what would happen. He would die, certainly. But how long would that take? Days? Weeks? Months? Years, even? All he knew was that he wouldn't be able to live as he once had.

The idea of being mortal again was...well...scary.

But the thought of dissapointing one of his precious people, least of all her...

...ah, what the hell."

* * *

"I can't believe I'm doing this shit." Naruto mutttered to himself, wiping another bloody line away from his nose as he climbed into the cockpit. "I'm a sentimental fool, that's what I am."

_Clack._

"Never put me in a Jaegar, I said." he grumbled blackly as he suited up. "I'd rather die on me own two feet, I said." His body quivered from the effort that it took to strap himself in. Him. Alone. A lone pilot, commanding a massive "bucket of bolts" as he had called it earlier. All around him the Jaegar loomed, its orange and black frame towering over everything else. The tech's had taken to calling it the Hurricane-a name he quietly resolved to change...assuming he survived this.

Hurricane, bah! What kind of name was that? Not his, certainly. It needed a better name than that generic label.

If this toaster failed him, if his mind gave out, he likely wouldn't live to see another.

It wasn't a Mark One, two, three, or even a five, like Striker Eureka.

It was a Mark VII. Seven. The first and last of its kind. It had been meant for Mako, a gift for her birthday, only a week away. But there wouldn't be one if the world ended. Once more, his mind was drawn back to the notion that his craft still needed a proper christening. Lord, he hadn't even named it, yet.

_*Engage*_

Naruto barely heard Hurricane's AI as the neural load locked down around him. He screamed. Vomitted blood. And then, impossibly, the Hurricane moved. Metal fingers, thousands of tons of raw power, began to twitch in slow unison with his fingers. The Mark VII was a marvel of technology-quick as lightning, and powered by three different reactors; digital, nuclear and chakra. If one went out, the other picked up the slack. A perfect piece of work, a marvel of engineering-

-and one he had to move all by himself.

"You're insane." Tendo's voice blared through his headset as he connected. "Do you hear me? The mental strain will tear you apart!"

"And your point?"

"That's it, I'm shutting her down-

"Let him go." Pentecost's voice belayed that order. "He can handle it."

"Listen to your boss, I don't see any other options here." the jinchuuriki mumbled. "Its me, or nothing." He could feel his body falling apart. But...surely he could pilot. Stacker had shown him enough that he knew how to make the mech move and fight. The rest would come naturally. He hoped. But not when it took every once of his beleagured brain just to move this damn thing. And he was determined to do so...

...even if it killed him.

Drifting with a biju as his partner was suicide he knew, something he daren't attempt. To sync with a vast, alien mind like that, even Kurama's, guarranteed death. So he could only draw strength from him, hope that he alone had enough willpower left in this old, beaten body.

Struggling, straining against the mental load, he felt only resistance. It was like trying to move the empire state building with your bare hands. A muscle jumped in his jaw. Then his temple. Blood vessels exploded like a volcano of red wrath in his eye. He felt his mind breaking, tearing itself to pieces on the shores of futility. Still, he persisted.

"Move, you rustbucket!"

_*Second Pilot on Deck*_

_What?_

His head snapped around as booted footfalls echoed through the Hurricane's head. Someone must've triggered the emergency access to get in. That shouldn't be possible. The only one who knew about that was...no. A sliver in time seemed to extend indefinitely as she stepped around the conn-pod. Blue eyes bulged as he recognized them. Her.

"Mako?"

Even as he saw her she was already starting strapping herself in.

"You can't do this by yourself." she said simply. "I'm going to help you."

"No," he began. "You are not doing this. Get your little ass out of this cockpit right now or _so help me-_

"I'm not letting you do this by yourself, sensei."

"I said no. You're not ready for this."

"And I say I am." she lifted her chin in stubborn protest.

"No."

"YES."

"Mako_-what the hell?"_

She glared back at him defiantly as she yanked off his helmet, staring him down. Defiance roared high in her eyes, shining bright and hot-like molten magma. Then she leaned in and kissed him, pressing her body to his in an instant. Naruto went rigid. Her lips were like velvet, her mouth moving against his for the span of one beat. Two. Three. Four. Then, as if in a dream, his student pulled away.

"Yes." she whispered softly.

"Okay," was all he managed. "I...had no idea you felt that way."

Her only response was the slightest of smiles. "You don't have to return it, just know that I care."

"Well...I...

Defiantly silent, she locked her boots into the harness.

Naruto gawped at her, momentarily shocked into silence. No longer was she that same little girl he'd rescued in Tokyo, but a young woman. And in that instant he knew, that no matter what he said, she wasn't backing down. His heart skipped a beat-hopefully not from the trauma-and he felt a slow smile blossom on his whiskered cheeks. Damn, but he was proud of her. And yet part of him wondered:

When had she gotten away from him? When had he come to see her as a woman, instead of that little girl he'd plucked from the streets of Tokyo? He didn't know.

"You never did listen to me."

"Naruto no baka." she replied in Japanese.

A small, resigned, tittering laugh left his lips.

"Ready to see inside my head, kid?"

She nodded.

"I should warn you, you might not like what you see-

_And then came the Drift._

**A/N: VOTE FOR THE NAME OF NARUTO AND MAKO'S JAEGER! THE WINNER GETS A SPECIAL PRIZE, ESPECIALLY IF I LIKE THE NAME!**

**There we go! My first official NarutoxPacific Rim Crossover! Not sure if Naruto is going to survive this story or not. I'll leave that to ya'll. Pairing is NarutoxMako, folks! Hope ya'll enjoy all of the insane monster fighting action that is to come! Also, a fair bit of humor, as you'll see. It explores what happened before the movie and of course, during it. And trust me folks, this won't be alll sunshine and roses. We're gonna see some death here, and a few familiar faces from other genres, as you'll see...**

**So...in the Immortal Words of Atlas...**

**...Review, Would You Kindly?! And of course enjoy the preivew! Phew, I'm gonna take a nap now, all this writing is wearing me out...**

**(Preview!)**

_"Surprise, motherfucker!"_

_The Kaiju barely had time to tilt its head before a sleek black and orange fist smashed into it, driving the blade home with a welt squelch. Naruto twisted the blade with a savage jerk of his wrist, and he felt Mako mirror the motion flawlessly, slamming the dread deep into the creature's brain matter._

_Blue blood spurted out of its skull, spattering harmlessly against the mech's shield._

_"Oh, that's more like it!"_

_Naruto did a little dance in the cockpit, grinning as Mako lowered her arm. He felt free again. Alive. The pain of his body was gone, washed away by the steady currents of the Drift. Pentecost had told him that this was a Drift like none other he'd ever seen; only now did he begin to understand what that meant. He could feel Mako inside his mind, in his thoughts, as much a part of him as his own hand. She knew what he was and took it all in stride, accepting it. Loving it. _

_Him._

_"Score one for the boys back home!"_

**R&amp;R =D**


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